“Oh, no.” She gave me what I felt was a condescending smile. “He is very attached to me.”
She went back to her writing. I took an uninvited seat on her sofa. My eyes wandered to all the luxurious things in her room. Large gilt mirrors shining in the flickering candlelight; a small glass that looked like it was made of exotic polished stone, with swirls of amber, blue, and white; a hanging basket of flowers made of bronze and porcelain. The basket, now I knew, was French—probably a gift from her foreign lover.
“How do you—” I started to ask, desperate to learn from her, “how do you attach your lover to you?”
She put down her pen and studied me amusedly for a while, as if considering how much to say. What did she know that I did not? I wondered. I needed her to tell me.
“It is not easy to name any one thing,” she finally offered. “I always meet him wearing my habit. Nothing excites him more.”
“But it is ugly!” I blurted out. “Why does he like it?”
“Because, like all men, he enjoys taking what is forbidden. A nun. Every man has this fantasy. Am I the first one to tell you this fact?” She offered me one of her devilish smiles. “They all dream of plucking a woman right out of God’s hands.”
“But I am not a nun,” I said, sorry about this for the first time in my life. “What else do you do to please him?”
“Oh—” she said, beginning to seem uneasy, “I wear . . . maybe some perfume, a mask during Carnival time, anything that is out of the ordinary. Men grow easily bored—and you have to—”
She stopped herself. She seemed more flustered than I had seen her before. She pulled strands of her hair loose from her chignon.
“Caterina,” she began again. Her face was pink and burning. “I am sure Giacomo is still very attached to you. But he has to keep himself alive, preserve himself for you. Chastity is not a virtue in a man. It makes him dull.”
She reached for her pen and avoided my startled eyes. Now my own face was burning. My breath was gone. I stumbled out of the room and crumpled against a cold wall in the hallway.
I had never told her his name.
CHAPTER 57
Carnival season started again the first Sunday in October. This meant that for the next few months—until Christmas—rules loosened at the convent. We were allowed occasional family visits and some modest amusements. Singers, musicians, and puppeteers came out to entertain us. The nuns showed off behind the window bars with powdered hair, rouged lips and cheeks, high-heeled clogs, and silk veils edged in gold and silver needlework. The converse set skillets over fires right in the visiting parlor, and fried doughnuts glistening with oil and sugar.
My mother and Zulietta came to see me that first day. I had not seen them in almost three months.
“My God, you look gray!” said my mother as soon as I came down and took my seat behind the grating. She reached for my hands through the bars and her eyes filled with instant tears. Zulietta gave my chilled fingers a loving squeeze. How happy she looked, ripe from her time on the mainland. Her auburn hair was more copper, and her large brown eyes glowed warmly in the dim afternoon light.
“I am tired, that is all.” I gave them a weak smile. “I am very glad you came to see me.”
Which was partly a lie. Certainly, I was happy and greatly relieved to see Zulietta after so much time spent away from her. But less so, my mother. Is there anything more disappointing, when you long for your lover—you are hungry for any word from him—and instead you receive news that your mother has arrived? Your mother always loves you; it is the other kind of love you crave desperately with your whole being.
My mother tried to talk to me about light things—gossip in the neighborhood, letters she got from my father, cute things the dog had done. But she could not hide her worry.
“Is your room cold?” she asked abruptly. “Have you been ill?”
“No—I mean, yes—my room is cold in the mornings,” I said, not able to concentrate well. “And the church is cold.”
Only mothers are interested in this kind of whining.
“The stone floor is so cold it seeps right through my slippers, so that my feet are blocks of ice by the end of each service.”
“Oh, poverina!” she said. Of course, she suggested no solution to my problem, not able to solve anything for herself or any of us. She still held my hand. But I didn’t resent it. In fact, I was beginning to melt into the comfort of her. I wanted to lay my head on her heart and cry about what—I was fairly certain—that whore, Marina Morosini, had done to me. And where was she, by the way? It was odd to see her absent on this social occasion.
“Zia,” said Zulietta, giving my mother a gentle tap on the arm, “I see the abbess just came in. Perhaps you can ask her to allow Caterina to bring a foot warmer into church on cold mornings? Tell her we think she does not look well.”
“Yes—Zulietta, you are right—a very good idea—”
She finally let go of my hand and got up to cross the room.
“At last!” said Zulietta, jumping to take her seat. “What has happened to you? You look so sad, Caterina. How can I cheer my favorite cousin?”
“Oh—” I said, avoiding her worried eyes, “there is nothing much. I—I have not received a letter from Giacomo in a while.”
“He is able to write you here?” Zulietta asked, clearly surprised and leaning in closer.
“Yes,” I said softly, “but then he stopped.” I did not offer more. I did not feel ready to say, you were right. You never trusted him, and you were right.
“Tell me about your time away!” I said instead, trying to muster my old enthusiasm. “Are you now the proud owner of an old horse?”
“Oh! Caterina!” said Zulietta, blushing. Or more, blooming. “There is so much to tell you.” She leaned in even closer and gestured for me to do the same. I pressed my ear to the grating. A few of my loose curls went through the bars, as if daring to be free.
“Giorgio—he did something awful—truly heinous—and I had to flee the villa in a hurry. I went to take Farfalle and—oh, Caterina, there will never be enough time to tell you everything!” she despaired. My mother was heading back toward us.
“Write me,” I urged Zulietta, under my breath.
“How long have you been writing and receiving letters?” she whispered back.
“Almost since I got here. Concetta—an older servant woman—delivers and picks them up for me on Wednesdays. I will ask her to stop by your house.”
“Wednesday. Three more days,” Zulietta said, rushing to complete our plan. “I will write you everything!” My mother was back and took her seat.
“The abbess said she could not give you any special privileges,” she reported, “but on Sundays during winter she will let you . . .”
I wasn’t listening. Neither was Zulietta. We exchanged conspiring looks. How I had missed her! And I sensed what she was soon to write me would make me see her in a whole new light.
CHAPTER 58
My mother and Zulietta stayed for a short concert given by the soprano Anna Medici from Modena. The autumn sun had gone down early, and candles were lit in sconces all around the parlor. We sat spellbound, the nuns, boarders, and all our guests as her high notes filled the vaulted room. She sang a selection of only religious music. But after she had finished, someone called out from the audience, “Intorno all’idol mio!” She smiled in recognition of the old love song, and started to sing again before the abbess even knew what was happening.
It is a song full of longing, of love being awakened. The singer asks the spirits of love to show her secret feelings to her beloved, who is sleeping: “. . . and my hidden passion, reveal it to him for me, O spirits of love!” I pictured her in a grove, maybe hiding behind a tree, asking the winds to kiss her lover’s cheeks. I closed my eyes and floated on the sweet currents of her voice. How I wanted the winds to carry my own kisses to Giacomo! Bring him back to me!
After many promises to visit again as soon as they could
, my mother and Zulietta left me and I started back toward my room. I walked the wide hallway that ran above the visiting parlor and the several smaller rooms that opened off of it. Some of these were also used for visits—as when my father had come—because they offered more privacy. My heels echoed on the terrazzo floor as I headed to the dormitory. There was no one else around.
I heard a trill of laughter rise up. A voice I knew. A voice I wanted to find.
I paced all around, inspecting this corner and that one, in a fever. The voice seemed to grow louder at one place. I bent down, and discovered an almost invisible crack where the floor met the wall.
I looked around anxiously, afraid I might be caught spying. I took a toothpick from my pocket and placed it behind a nearby stool set against the wall. This way, if anyone saw me, I could say it had dropped from my mouth and I had crouched down to retrieve it. I slid down on the floor like a snake and pressed my eye against the rough line of the crack at the base of the wall.
Below me, I saw Marina from the back. She wore her habit, and looked the part of any nun. But when she moved her head, I could see she had a tiny black circle pasted near the corner of her mouth. There is a whole language to these pieces of gummed silk, I later learned. At the mouth like this, it is known as assassina. Love’s assassin.
Her visitor sat on the other side of the grated window, partially obstructed from my view. He wore a beaked white mask, black hood and cloak, and gold-edged tricorn hat.
By God, I pray he is a stranger! I squeezed my eyes shut, willing away my worst fears. My heart pounded against the cold floor beneath me. Santa Caterina, protect me! Do not let me know his voice.
The low ceiling and echoing stone floor of the small room into which I was looking meant I could hear almost everything.
“When can I convince you of my feelings outside these walls?” the man with the mask asked.
My prayer died on my lips.
“Whenever you can join me for supper at my casino, on this island,” said Marina. “I need only two days’ notice.”
“Two days, then! May I ask—does your lover know about us?”
“He does. I do not leave him in ignorance of anything.”
“How did he take it? He is not upset that you will have another lover besides him?”
“He is delighted to see me happy. He is dedicated to my pleasure.” She inclined her black silk assassina toward him. “I presume you also have a lover?” She said it easily, like a piece of music that was her delight to play.
I held my breath for his answer.
“Alas, she has been taken from me! For six months I have been living the life of a monk.”
“But do you still love her?” she pressed.
“I loved her so much I risked everything to possess her. I lost everything. But—I realize now that I am a man meant to be in love, not to pine after a woman who is gone.”
“You are inconstant, then,” she said, approvingly. She slipped one white hand through the grating and he bathed it in kisses.
“Perhaps I am. But still—give me a pledge.”
“What sort of pledge?”
“Open the small window for me.”
What small window was he talking about? I scanned the room from above. All I saw were bars. No one had ever told me about any visiting room window that could be opened to the world.
Marina rose and pressed a spring along the edge of the grated window. Four sections of bars at the center popped open, making a secret square about eighteen inches on a side. It was large enough for a man to squeeze through.
Giacomo slid aside his mask. He leaned in and hungrily kissed Marina. His new nun.
CHAPTER 59
I reached my room carried on a tide of despair. At first, the feelings that rose up in me were so strong, I could not move. I remember sitting on my bed in the dark with my fist in a pillow, unable even to cry.
Tormented memories of the night Giacomo and I had exchanged our marriage vows came back to me: I promise God and you that from this moment until death I will be your faithful husband . . . he had said. Had his words meant nothing? Mine had meant everything to me. I pictured Marina, like some evil sorceress who had enticed Giacomo away. Hot, stinging tears ran down my face. I punched the pillow. I twisted it and screamed into it and wanted to suffocate myself inside it.
Finally, I fell into a desperate sleep of escape. But my nightmares tortured me even more.
I dreamed I was in a tall house in Venice, a place I did not know. I was on the top floor, looking out a window. Suddenly, the lagoon below me rose up in a great green wave as high as the house itself. The wave was smooth like a thick wall, and at its height, white foam played like menacing, bony fingers. I panicked and ran to the other side of the building.
I realized then I had left behind someone I loved—a child. I ran back, but the house heaved with the impact of the wave. I wondered if the bricks and crumbling mortar could absorb all the force, or if the walls and windows were going to crash in and crush me. The whole building tilted at an awful slant and I was spinning . . . still spinning, I awoke, sweating and full of dread.
By now it was deep night in my room, and I noticed a strange, orange glow coming from my window. I got up to look out. A full harvest moon was in the sky, shining over windblown black water. This meant winter was coming. I shivered.
I went over to my writing desk. I pulled a wool blanket over my shoulders and lit a candle. A poem poured out. I say it like this because I did not intend to write it, and I’ve rarely written a poem since. It just came to me that night—
Where was it that I wrote my dream?
I thought it was in the garden,
Then I thought it was in the sea.
Is it in my letters?
Why did I need to search for it
As if I can’t remember it?
Just to check
Is it still there.
I wasn’t ready to give up on my dream. I wasn’t ready for Giacomo to forget me. Marina was no powerful sorceress; she simply stole from me because it entertained her to do so. And what a fool she must have thought I was: banished by my father, miscarrying my child, now losing my husband. Unable to control what happened to me, or hold on to anything that was mine.
Well, those days were over. I could play her manipulative games just as skillfully as she did. Maybe, even better.
I dipped my pen.
CHAPTER 60
I wrote Giacomo a sweet letter. I had to play the part of an angel or I knew I would lose him. I paid Concetta double her usual coins to take it to him the very next morning.
Giacomo—
I must tell you that just hours ago, on my way back to my room and bending down to pick up a toothpick I had dropped in the hallway, I came upon a large crack where the floor met the wall. I could not help but look into the visiting room below, and I saw you with my dear friend, Sister Morosini. I quickly stood up and left.
My husband—I deserve to know how you made her acquaintance. Do you love her? I assure you, I am not jealous! I understand that you cannot be expected to live a life of deprivation while you wait for me.
His message back to me that same day was full of even sweeter lies.
My adorable little spy—
You misunderstand what you saw. Sister Morosini is a friend of my friend, the Countess Seguro. I had her called to a visiting room to give her a message from the old woman. There is nothing between us. I do not love her. I am all yours, my angel.
I knew this account of things was not what I had heard with my own ears. Could love continue to live on layers of lies? To keep myself sane, I told myself, yes, it could.
I wanted to know everything about their upcoming tryst. Maybe Giacomo would not go through with it, knowing now I had seen him? Maybe my words would act as water on his flames.
The next day, I waited alone in my room for the Evening Star to show bright. Then, I grabbed one of the French books Marina had lent me and headed toward her room. I fou
nd her, together with her conversa, Laura, just outside her doorway. She was wearing her habit and a wool cloak. She clutched a black velvet mask, its ribbons loose and ready to be tied on once she slipped away from the convent.
The color rose in Laura’s cheeks when she saw me, but Marina’s face remained white and hard as porcelain.
“How correct you are!” she said, noticing the book in my hand. “We are behind in your French.” Her words fluttered out, but I noticed a little catch in her breath.
“Are you going somewhere?” I asked, trying to sound innocent.
“Yes—I am leaving for a while.” She offered no explanation. With a quick lift of her finger she gestured to Laura to move along. They left me standing in the hallway, the book slack in my hand.
I walked, then ran back to my room. I was burning with rage and disappointment. I shredded every page of that stupid French book. And threw to the floor every other book she had ever given me. Philosophy books. Plays. Novels. I hated her, I hated her whole mind, and I hated anything that fed it.
I ran to the window to watch her go. The full moon lit a clear sky. I saw a gondola pass by, its cabin a block of black against the shining sea. I realized I was never going to learn enough this way, skulking around the convent looking for clues, waiting to see what crumbs Marina might toss me.
No. I had to find another way. I would have to take matters into my own hands.
CHAPTER 61
The next day, now Wednesday, Concetta brought me my awaited letter from Zulietta. It had the weight of a pamphlet—as promised, she had written at length—and I ripped open the envelope eagerly, alone in my room. I needed comfort from my own agonies, but, at least at first, the letter was more horrifying than comforting. It told of recent events at the villa belonging to the Contarini family, where Zulietta and her family had been staying to become better acquainted with her proposed match, Giorgio Contarini. Now that Zulietta was once again home, I could finally learn everything.
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