Color Song (A Passion Blue Novel)

by Victoria Strauss

  “Why would he not teach you?”

  Giulia hesitated. But his voice held neither skepticism nor mockery. He sounded as if he really wanted to know.

  “My old master died. The one who inherited the workshop hated me. I was ordered to . . . to do something I thought was wrong, or else be banished. I realized that even if I obeyed . . . even if I was allowed to stay . . .” She took a breath. She’d never thought she would say any of this aloud. “I could never learn from such a master. Not as I want to learn. So I left.”

  “As easily as that?”

  She shook her head. “It wasn’t easy at all. But I had no choice.”

  “I thought of running away.” He was not looking at her now, but at his fine leather gloves, which he was drawing through his fingers. “Last year, when I turned nineteen.”

  She stared at him. It was, perhaps, the last thing she might have expected him to say. “Why?”

  “I’ve been managing my mother’s affairs since I was fourteen years old.” He spoke quietly; it was hard to hear him over the noise of the campo. “But I want to attend the university at Padua. I’ve always wanted to be a scholar—to read books, to write them myself. Perhaps to teach. I thought of just . . . leaving. Dropping everything, leaving everything behind. But in the end I couldn’t betray my mother so.”

  “Would she not agree to let you go if you asked?”

  “I cannot ask.”

  “Why not?”

  “If she said no, I fear I would hate her for it.” He breathed in, deeply, then out again. “She needs me. She has no one else.”

  She heard the resignation in his voice. This was a Bernardo she had never seen before, had never even suspected existed. She did not know what to do or say.

  “Well.” He slapped his gloves into his palm and held out his free hand. “Good luck to you, Girolamo.”

  Without thinking, Giulia took his hand. His fingers were smooth, his grip strong and warm. Their eyes met. And she felt something in her shift, as if the touch and the look and the new, yearning part of himself he’d just shown her had worked some kind of alchemical transformation. For the first time, her body understood what her eyes had been telling her all along: that he was a beautiful, desirable young man.

  The blood rushed to her face. Perhaps he noticed. Or perhaps he was simply drawing back into himself, closing a door he regretted cracking open. He pulled away, more sharply than seemed necessary. Without another word he turned and left her, striding back toward the canal.

  Giulia watched him go. The sense of his hand lingered in hers, his palm and fingers as soft as only those of a man who’d never done manual labor could be.

  I’ll never see him again. To her surprise, the thought carried something almost like regret.

  CHAPTER 13

  GIANFRANCO FERRALDI

  Bernardo was gone. Giulia turned away from the canal, her mind shifting to what lay ahead. Her heart, immediately, began to race.

  Ignoring the curious glances of passersby, she crouched on the paving of the campo to undo the bundle of clothing she carried. She freed Bernardo’s mantle and pulled it over her shoulders, then rolled everything up again in her own ragged cloak and tucked it under her arm.

  Salizzada San Lio opened directly off the campo. Giulia plunged into the crowd of pedestrians jostling in the narrow space between the shop fronts and taverns that lined both sides of the street. The air was alive with the voices of tradespeople and housewives, ripe with the odors of food and refuse. Laundry flapped from upper windows, draped on long poles.

  She found the Calle del Fruttariol without trouble—barely wide enough for two men to walk abreast, its brick paving slimy with the overflow from blocked gutters. At its end, a rio cut across at a right angle. Ferraldi’s house was the last one on the left. Giulia recognized its stucco façade from the sketches he’d done for Humilità: the odd placement of the third-floor windows, the plaque of the winged Lion of San Marco inset above the door.

  This is the end of my journey, she thought, looking up at the lion—his paw resting on a book, his jaws open in a roar. Everything I’ve come to find lies behind that door.

  For an instant she wanted nothing more than to turn and run.

  She drew a deep breath, steadying herself, then raised her hand and knocked. No response. She knocked again, harder than she intended, her nerves seizing hold of her muscles.

  “Give it up, would you?” A voice from inside, muffled by the wood. “I’m coming!”

  The latch rattled. The door swung a little way open, revealing a skinny boy in a paint-stained smock, his hair sticking out like straw around his face.

  “What do you want?”

  “I’m here—” Giulia cleared her throat, pitched her voice lower. “I’m here to see Gianfranco Ferraldi.”

  “What for?” The boy swiped his hand under his nose, which was running.

  “My name is Girolamo Landriani. I’ve come from Padua on the recommendation of an old friend of Maestro Ferraldi’s, Maestra Humilità Moretti.”

  “Saints! You’d better tell him yourself.”

  The boy pulled the door open all the way. The windowless area beyond was unlit; Giulia had the vague impression of a large space, a jumble of chests and shelves. The air smelled dankly of stone and canal water—but also, clear and distinct, of sawdust and varnish and oil and exotic materials, the mingled odors of a painter’s trade. They halted her on the threshold, so deeply familiar that she wanted nothing more than to stand and breathe them in.

  “You coming or not?”

  Hastily she stepped inside. The boy relatched the door, plunging them into darkness, except for a faint illumination from above, where a set of stairs rose to the second floor. Giulia followed the boy up to a hallway. A window on her right looked down into the street. On her left, a single doorway gave onto a long, high-ceilinged chamber.

  The workshop.

  Because of Ferraldi’s drawings, it was familiar to her piecemeal. Now, seeing it whole, she realized it was bigger than she’d thought, nearly as big as the workshop at Santa Marta. Its wood-plank floor was cluttered with tables, stools, chests, and cabinets. Two artists stood in the light of a long window arcade, their easels turned away from her so she could not see what they were working on. An apprentice polished a gessoed panel set on a pair of sawhorses, while another banged at something with a hammer and a third labored at a grinding stone. Near the far wall, two men bent over a drafting table.

  The noise of this activity filtered out into the hallway: thumps and scrapes, voices raised in conversation. Things anyone might hear. But for Giulia there was something more, woven through the ordinary sounds like threads of gold in a tapestry of duller hues: the musical sizzle of cinnabar vermilion. The acid whine of malachite green. Lead white, purring like a great cat; crimson lake, trilling like a silver flute. All these paints and more were in use here, each singing with its own singular tone and tempo: the color song, which Giulia had not heard since the night she’d left Santa Marta, and had feared—though she could not have admitted it to herself, not until this very moment—she might never hear again.

  “You coming?”

  Once more she had forgotten to move. The boy was looking back at her, a peculiar expression on his face; she had the feeling she might have made some sound or gesture without realizing it.

  “Yes,” she said.

  She followed him into the workshop. The singing of the colors intensified as she passed the artists at their easels and dwindled again as she neared the drafting table.

  “Uncle,” the boy said. “Someone’s here to see you.”

  “Who?” asked the older of the two artists, his attention still on the drafting table, where a large sheet of paper was spread out, its curling edges held down with stones.

  “Um, Girolamo something. From Padua.”

  “Girolamo something?” Annoyance snapped in Ferraldi’s voice. “Did you not ask his surname?”

  He looked up. Giulia had studied the
little self-portraits he’d drawn for Humilità; she’d thought him ugly in those sketches, with his high domed forehead, hooked nose, and thin-lipped mouth. She saw now that he had maligned himself. His features were just as he’d portrayed them; but his living face, framed by silver hair falling to his shoulders, was somehow not ugly at all.

  “Who are you, young man?” Ferraldi’s eyes were a vivid blue green, another thing his sketches had not conveyed. “What’s your business with me?”

  Everything Giulia had planned to say flew out of her head. She heard herself blurt out: “I want to be your apprentice.”

  “Ah.” Ferraldi straightened and put down the quill he held. The man beside him—muscled like an athlete, with a hard face and close-cropped hair—folded his arms, watching. “Unfortunately, I’ve no need of an apprentice at present.”

  “Please, signor. Maestra Humilità Moretti gave me your name. If you’d take just a moment to look at my work—”

  “Humilità?” Ferraldi interrupted, his face lighting up. “You are acquainted with her? How does she fare?”

  “I’m sorry, signor. She . . . she died in September.”

  “Ah,” Ferraldi said again—this time an exclamation of pain. He closed his brilliant eyes briefly, then reopened them. “Come with me, young man.”

  He led the way to the end of the room, glancing back once to make sure Giulia was following. He was slight—not even as tall as she was—and very slender, and moved with a decisive swiftness that reminded her of Humilità, who before she’d fallen ill had possessed a similar air of overflowing energy.

  He ushered Giulia into a small chamber that was obviously his study. It was a riot of disorder: chests half open; rags and other objects littering the floor; the desk heaped with sketches, ledgers, quills, and other objects. An easel was turned to the light of a window; the painting on it was hidden by a cloth, but Giulia could hear the cymbal song of azurite, so clear that she knew it had only recently been laid on.

  “Sit down.” Ferraldi seated himself behind his desk, gesturing that Giulia should take the stool opposite. “Tell me who you are and how you know Humilità Moretti.” He corrected himself, the spasm of pain passing across his face again. “Knew her.”

  “My name is Girolamo Landriani.” Giulia’s heart was pounding again as she spoke the first of the lies she planned to tell. “I’m . . . cousin to one of Maestra Humilità’s pupils, Giulia Borromeo.”

  “Are you indeed?” Ferraldi said with interest. “Humilità wrote to me about your cousin. She believes—believed—she has great promise as a painter. You are from Padua, then?”

  “From Milan, signor. I apprenticed with a master there, but he died, and there was no place for me in his workshop after that. My cousin had already been sent to Padua, and I decided to follow, since my parents are dead and I have no other family.”

  “That is how you met Humilità, then? Through your cousin?”

  “Yes, signor. Maestra Humilità was interested to learn I had apprenticed as a painter, and she accompanied my cousin sometimes when I went to the convent to visit. She was kind enough to look at my drawings, and . . . and to praise them. When I could find no master in Padua, she gave me your name.”

  “I am surprised she did not recommend you to her father.”

  Giulia felt a cold finger slide up her spine. “I would have been honored to apprentice with him, but he had no room for me.”

  Ferraldi turned his ugly-pleasing face toward the window.

  “We trained together, she and I,” he said softly; and in what she heard in his voice, Giulia knew she had guessed right: He had loved Humilità and, perhaps, loved her still. “Her father taught her as though she were a boy—and well he should, for her talent was the equal of any man’s. The apprentices were jealous—they could not accept that God had given such genius to a woman. Their scorn only made her labor harder. Such strength she had. Such will.” He sighed. “But no will is stronger than death. She made light of her illness in her letters, but I suspected it was more serious than she said. Do you know what sort of end she had?”

  “It was not without pain. But she was at peace. So my cousin told me.”

  “May God have mercy on her soul.” Ferraldi crossed himself. “What will become of your talented cousin?”

  “Signor, my cousin is also dead.” Giulia felt the touch of ice again as she spoke the lie, though in a way it was true enough. “Suddenly, of a fever, at the end of September.”

  “Madonna. What cruel fortune. I am sorry, Girolamo.”

  Giulia looked down at her hands. “Thank you, signor.”

  “So you have come to me,” Ferraldi said. “Hoping to find a new master. I would help you if I could, for Humilità’s sake, but as I said before, I am not looking for an apprentice.”

  “Signor, I’m a hard worker. I can do any task you need, from grinding pigments to purifying oils to preparing panels. I can draw with charcoal, chalk, pen, or brush. I have some experience with paint, and I can use both tempera and oil.” Giulia reached into the neck of her doublet and pulled out the roll of her drawings. “I’ve brought drawings to show you. Please, signor, look at them—they will prove I have a gift.”

  “I’m sorry, Girolamo. This is a small workshop, as you can see. I have three apprentices already, and though I would gladly rid myself of one of them, I cannot, for he is my sister’s son. I have not the wages for a fourth.”

  “Signor, you don’t have to pay me, not a penny. I’ll work for free.”

  “Why would you do that when you could find another master? I can suggest a few names, if you like.”

  “Signor, I don’t want another master. I will do anything. I’ll scrub floors, run errands, polish gesso till my fingers bleed. I’ll work day and night. I will work harder than any apprentice you’ve ever had. Just look at my work.” Giulia heard her voice break, as no boy’s would, but in that moment she didn’t care. “Please, I beg you, don’t send me away without looking at my work. Give me that chance at least before you make up your mind.”

  He fixed her with his blue-green gaze. She could see no softening in his face; and with utter despair she knew that the worst had happened, and she had failed.

  But then he sighed. Shaking his head in the manner of a man acting against his better judgment, he reached for the drawings and unrolled them. Giulia had placed Sofia on top, glancing back over her shoulder, smiling her enigmatic smile. Ferraldi’s face changed when he saw her. Giulia saw the shift, the sudden sharpening of attention.

  “You drew this,” he said.

  “Yes, signor. I will prove it if you let me.”

  He laid the portrait aside. One by one, he examined the other sheets: the portrait studies, the tiny sketches of trees and animals and the men of the merchant caravan. Giulia waited, her heart beating, every muscle tense. From beyond the door, faintly, she could hear the sound of the artists at work.

  “How old are you, Girolamo?”

  “Fifteen, signor.”

  “Who was your master in Milan?”

  “Marco Signorelli.” It was the name of a painter with whom Maestro Bruni had been acquainted.

  “I don’t know the name. How long did you study with him?”

  “A year and a half. But I’ve been drawing all my life, ever since I can remember.”

  “Describe how you would go about making gesso.”

  Giulia did. Other questions followed: purifying oils, preparing tempera, the qualities of various pigments. Giulia answered as fully as she could. A flame of hope had kindled inside her, flaring a little brighter with each query.

  At last Ferraldi rose. “Wait here.”

  He went out into the workshop again, returning after a moment with a sheet of paper and a stick of black chalk. Shoving aside some of the clutter of his desk, he laid them in front of Giulia.

  “Draw,” he said. “One thing, whatever you choose.”

  Giulia took up the chalk, her fingers curving around it with the same deep sense of famil
iarity she’d felt as she crossed the threshold of Ferraldi’s house, and began to shape Humilità’s face. She drew her teacher as she had been in health: round-cheeked and robust, her deep-set eyes meeting the viewer’s in her customary expression of challenge. It was the image Giulia carried in her mind’s eye—the image that she hoped, one day, would blot out the memory of the gaunt ghost Humilità had become at the end of her life.

  She laid down the chalk and offered the paper to Ferraldi, who’d seated himself across from her again. She could read nothing in his face as he looked at it. This was her last chance, she knew. Whatever he decided now would be final.

  He set down the portrait at last and folded his hands on top of it.

  “Very well, Girolamo. You may stay.”

  The rush of relief was so powerful that for a moment Giulia feared she would lose consciousness.

  “Understand that I am not agreeing to take you as an apprentice—not yet, at any rate. You are gifted, that is clear, but a gift is only part of what makes a painter. For now, you may work with the other boys, doing as they do and learning as they learn. We shall see how well you get along.”

  “I understand, signor. Thank you. Thank you!”

  “Am I correct in guessing that you do not have a place to stay?”

  “I’m sure I can find one, signor.”

  “Well, you may make a bed for yourself downstairs in the storeroom. I have a blanket I can spare for you, but otherwise you are responsible for your own equipment and expenses, and that includes food. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, signor,” Giulia said, more glad than ever for Sofia’s purse, secure beneath her doublet. “You won’t regret it, I swear.”

  “Only God can make such promises.” Ferraldi rose. “Now, let me introduce you to my painters.”

  —

  That night Giulia spread her borrowed blanket on a makeshift platform of scrap lumber, which she’d scavenged from the storeroom and arranged in an empty corner. The storeroom occupied the whole of the ground floor, with the weight of the upper floors supported on columns. In addition to the entry from the street, big double doors opened onto a wide paved walkway, known in Venice as a fondamenta, alongside the canal. From the smell, Giulia guessed that the room had flooded more than once in the past. But the floor was dry, and she was alone, without the need to guard her secret from prying eyes.