The Painter's Apprentice

by Laura Morelli

  The battiloro set up his supplies on the wooden table in the small courtyard garden. I washed out copper pots in the canal behind the house more slowly than I had ever done before, curious to watch the Saracen goldbeater organize his tools. He gave me a wide smile when I asked if he needed anything, and when I expressed my sorrow over the loss of old Master Zuan.

  My father mounted the ladder leading to the old wooden loft above our hearth, cleaning out years of clutter. I was tasked with dusting the cobwebs and creating space for the rough-hewn wooden bed and straw-stuffed mattress dragged from the old goldbeater’s studio. By nightfall, we had a new member of our household. By the next day, we also had a new way of working that changed everything.

  From the far reaches of the shelf under my worktable in the painter’s studio, I gather the sheaves of gold leaf and calculate how many I will need for Master Trevisan’s altarpiece commission. How many can I spare to pay the boatman? I pry a few sheets from one of the books and place them inside a small bag with a drawstring. How many could I afford to pry away before it becomes clear that something is missing?

  “Still awake?”

  I stifle a scream. Antonella. I thought she had already retired to our bedchamber, but she is standing at the door, leaning on a mop handle, a small metal bucket in the other hand. My heart races in my chest.

  “You startled me.” I whisk the rest of the gold leaf books to the shelf under the table, but not before she has seen me counting them, I think.

  “Accounting for your work?”

  “It… it is for our panels,” I say. “I brought some things from my father’s workshop.”

  Antonella nods, then smirks. “Well. While you are here just make sure you get paid yourself.” She has understood that it is gold leaf.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Let us say that the painter has not always been reliable. Boatman,” she says, lowering her voice to a whisper and gesturing toward the door that leads to the stairs of the boat slip, “has only returned to the house recently. He left because he was so poorly treated. That painter... They had a row. Boatman was even put into the stocks for a few days because of him.”

  “Is that how he got the…?” I touch my cheek just below my eye.

  “No,” she says. “That happened long before he came here. A hateful old woman accused him of stealing and it was her word against his. He was too young for the branding iron but there was no one to defend him. An injustice,” she says, shaking her head. “Anyway, boatman does not trust that painter. Now he has agreed to come back, but Master Trevisan has yet to pay him what he’s owed. He is holding back some of the money to try to keep him here.” She puts her hand on her hip and places her dark eyes on me. “That’s why you must be careful.”

  “I am being paid with instruction, not with money,” I say, immediately regretting sharing this information. In fact, I wish I could close my ears and not hear this woman’s poisonous words. I have said too much. Servants have a reputation for inciting trouble but I have little experience knowing how to navigate their schemes. We never had servants of our own.

  “Count yourself lucky,” Antonella says. “Those of us who are paid with money must chase it.”

  “I am sure that is not for me to know,” I say, closing the drape over the shelves under the table and starting for the door.

  Antonella’s face comes close to mine as she leans on her mop handle for support. Her voice lowers. “I am telling you because you must use caution and be smart with him,” she says, gesturing toward the door where the painter has disappeared to the upper floors. “And do not get me started on the wife,” she says, rolling her eyes. “She can hardly stop herself from talking, but watch your back. She only cares about herself and her status with her husband’s patrons, trying to push her husband up in the guild ranks. He would not have the courage to do it himself.”

  She twists the mop over a metal bucket, releasing dirty grey water into it, then drags the damp rags over the uneven surface of the tiles. The not-unpleasant aroma of vinegar fills the room.

  “She has been kind to me,” I say, wondering if Antonella has overheard my strained conversation with the painter’s wife in the stairwell.

  Antonella pauses her mopping. “She is full of sweet talk with you right now,” she whispers, “but be careful. She would have had boatman sent to the Doge’s prisons in the batting of a cat’s eye.” She makes a flicking gesture with her hand. “But the painter has a kinder heart. Plus, he is weak.”

  We hear footsteps on the ceiling above us. Antonella’s voice lowers to a barely audible whisper.

  “I am telling you this as your friend. Trust me. Watch yourself with those two,” she says. “Especially the wife.” She picks up her bucket. I watch her press her palm to her lower back and hobble out of the room.

  Even though I no longer expect to find my Cristiano in the monks’ garden behind San Giovanni Elemosinario, I still go there every Friday evening, just to be sure.

  For a while, I sit on the stone bench and look up into barren branches of the birch tree that once sheltered our stolen kisses. I cast messages to him into the vast grey sky, hoping that somehow my words may travel over the narrow calli and canals, that somehow he can hear my silent pleas to keep the pestilence at bay, the cry that together, we have created life, a fact that wants to burst from me with a force beyond my reckoning.

  In the markets, all has gone to grey. Normally, the end of Carnival heralds the beginning of spring. But this year, the last burst of Carnival festivities ended with a stammer, and now everything seems returned to winter, to silence, to grey.

  I have also written a letter. My Cristiano does not read, not having had the benefit of the education my father and my cousin thought fit to indulge me in as a child. I finger the parchment pages that I have folded into the pocket of my felted cape. I have written down everything I can think to say to my father and my cousin—details of our work in the painter’s studio, descriptions of my visits to my aunt and her convent, news of the painter’s pregnant wife. What I want to say most is what is missing, what is still held only inside my heart.

  Chapter 17

  “Signor Grissoni’s father is a well-respected guildsman.”

  The painter’s wife bounces her baby girl on her lap. In recent days Donata has been spending more time inside the painter’s workshop, pacing the room with the baby in her arms, flitting about with a feather duster, or making small adjustments to the arrangement of paintbrushes on the table. “And his mother,” she says, “came from a highborn family in San Polo.”

  “Mostly he is talented with the pigments,” says the painter, looking up at his wife from one of the sketchbooks where he has collected pages of drawings of my hair, my face, my hands, long before I realized he was doing so. The painter has turned to a fresh page and is working through the arrangement of figures composing a Lamentation. My eye goes immediately to the figure of Mary Magdalene, which he has begun to sketch over and over in his book.

  “I am sure that is true, though I have never seen his work,” his wife says. “But owing to his family pedigree anyone would be fortunate to be allied with him.”

  I say nothing, not knowing how to respond. It is clear now that the appearance of Pascal Grissoni at our dinner table had little to do with painting, and mostly to do with the seeming need for me to wed, with arrangements that are being made for me outside of my own view. A marriage with Pascal Grissoni or any other painter is the last thing on my mind. I cannot begin to imagine what any husband would say about my condition.

  I turn my focus to the small scrap panel where I have been practicing painting drapery folds with various tones of red. Master Trevisan follows my gaze, then comes to stand so that he can look over my shoulder. In the beating silence, he watches my hand move slowly and awkwardly with the brush.

  “Hmm,” he says, pressing his fist to his mouth as if to
prevent himself from blurting a comment. “Allow me.” I hand him the paintbrush. He picks up a small bead of amber-colored pigment, then traces a fine line along the edge of one of the drapery folds I have begun to form. “Do you see how this highlights the edge of the umber?”

  The truth is, I do not see. I simply nod. “Yes,” I say. “Grazie.”

  He puts the brush back in my hand. I try to replicate what he has just shown me. The painter nods, then presses his hand over my own in order to direct my brushstroke. I feel his warm breath at my neck, and smell a hint of perspiration over the egg-like scent of the pigment binder.

  “You will master it, I assure you,” the painter tells me. “We have at least a year to get it right.” He raises his eyebrows at me and grins. “Fortunate for us. Am I right, Donata?”

  “Yes,” the painter’s wife says, and her lips spread out to a thin-lipped smile that looks pained. “Fortunata.”

  “Bring me the red ink wash,” says the painter to his journeyman before returning to his sketchbook.

  Stefano rises from where he is seated in the corner, stabbing green on some trees in the background of a picture of the Madonna and Child that the painter has told me that they are preparing for the confraternity of drapers. As he passes the canal-side door, the brass bell outside of it jingles.

  “Signor Baldi,” the journeyman says, opening the door. In the frame of the doorway I recognize a familiar face and feel my heart lighten.

  “Baldi!” the painter smiles. “You are a welcome sight.”

  Signor Baldi, a carpenter from my old quarter in Cannaregio, steps into the painter’s studio, followed by three of his sons. The carpenter is a shaggy-looking stray dog of a man with a gaggle of children too large to count. Since his wife died in childbirth last year, he has employed all of his children, even his twin toddlers, in his dilapidated yet bustling carpentry studio several streets away from my father’s. I never thought I would be so happy to see anyone.

  “I have brought your panels, painter. And your new lantern.” He gestures to a small skiff docked at the painter’s wooden mooring. Cold, damp air rushes in from the canal and I peer through the open door to see the dingy boat filled with a stack of poplar panels of the kind we use to paint and gild for altarpieces and other works.

  “At last. Excellent. Please... bring them in.”

  Signor Baldi gestures to his sons to bring in the panels. The carpenter’s sons, all three handsome boys in the flush of youth, bring in the panels one by one. The journeyman follows to help them, then shows the boys where to stack the hulking wooden panels along the wall.

  “Maria.” Baldi removes his hat and approaches my table. “There you are. We have heard that you were here working with Master Trevisan.” He fidgets with his hat, running his grubby fingertips along the brim of the green felted wool. His face is prematurely lined, and he brushes his thinning, wheat-colored hair away from his forehead as if he is suddenly worried about his appearance.

  “Yes,” I say. “Since Epiphany I have been here.”

  “I saw your father,” he says. “Some time ago. I brought him some of the small alder wood panels he likes, you know the ones.” He gestures as if to convey the idea of a small square. “He told me that you were coming here.”

  “You have seen my family?” I interrupt. “You have been in the workshop?”

  The carpenter’s face darkens and a grim expression passes over his face. “It was more than two months ago now, I suppose,” he turns to me. “Before they began to block the streets.”

  “You saw my cousin? And Cristiano—our battiloro?”

  “Sì,” he says. “They were all well when I saw them.” I feel all the breath flow out of me.

  “It was good timing for Maria to come join us here,” the painter’s wife says, “given the spread of the plague in Cannaregio.”

  “Fortunate indeed, Signora Trevisan,” says the carpenter. “Yesterday I heard that they have docked two passenger ferries at the traghetto in Santa Croce, and two more at Rialto. They are beginning to ferry people to the plague islands.”

  “Madre de Dio!” the painter’s wife exclaims.

  The eldest son, a lean boy of about twelve, sets an ornately carved wooden lantern on the worktable. His father says, “We will be back with the battens to fasten together the panels after you have prepared them, Master Trevisan. In the meantime, we have finally finished the lantern for your new gondola. Please forgive our delay.”

  The painter pats Baldi on the shoulder and brings the lantern to my worktable. “A work of remarkable beauty. Maria, this one is for you to gild.” I examine the ornate wooden contraption, a four-sided, lidded container for an oil lamp that may be hung from an iron hook on the aft deck of the gondola so that the craft may be seen at night. I run my hands over the finely carved swirls and leaf patterns that the carpenters have crafted along the sides and the lid. I can already imagine the lantern gilded, swinging suspended above the boat where it glitters in the night.

  “The loveliest thing!” exclaims the painter’s wife.

  “Exactly as I wanted,” says the painter.

  “I know how proud you are of that new boat,” the carpenter says. “I would not have done my job if I had not tried to match the craftsmanship of the gondola.”

  Trevisan smiles. “You have succeeded, and that is no simple task. You may know that the gondola came from the Squero Vianello, perhaps the best boatyard in Our Most Serene City.”

  I step out from behind the table, eager to turn the conversation back to my family. “What does that mean, that the boats are lining up at the traghetto?”

  Signor Baldi returns to my table and presses his knuckles on it. The creases in his face deepen as he chooses his words. “It means that the officials from the Health Office are taking the sick out of the neighborhood and to the old lazzaretto before the pestilence spreads any further,” he says. I feel my heart begin to pound. “The sick are being coerced to board at the ferry stations. They and the contents of their houses.”

  “And they are burning people’s stuff!” The carpenter’s youngest son has been distracted by the tools on Trevisan’s worktable and has stopped helping his older brothers. He runs his dirt-stained fingers over the metal scrapers as he sets his wide brown eyes on me. I sense wonder, if not fear, in them.

  His father steps in. “The belongings from the houses where the pestilence has struck are being sent to the Campo Sant’Alvise to be burned on the pyre.” My heart begins to pound as I imagine the small public square nearest my father’s house. “It is a normal measure to stop the spread. There is some rumbling that Our Most Excellent Prince will soon declare a quarantena. If he does, then the war galleys and merchant ships must anchor in the lagoon for forty days before mooring. That way they ensure that no one is sick before disembarking.”

  “Santo Cielo, a quarantine! It is getting worse!” The painter’s wife rushes to her husband’s side and grasps the widest part of his arm for support.

  “I do not know that it is worse than in past outbreaks, signora, but ever since Our Most Beloved Prince was struck down the Sanità seems to be taking it seriously.” I have heard people speak of Our Most Excellent Prince Giovanni Mocenigo, who fell to the pestilence just a few years before my birth. Signor Baldi continues. “The Lords of the Council seem to be taking measures to ensure that it does not spread like it did the last time.”

  “I hope they are successful this time,” says the painter. “We cannot afford to have our population decimated as has happened in the past.”

  Baldi shakes his head. “An unpleasant job; I do not envy them. My cousin told me that the men assigned to Cannaregio—the ones who are being paid to record the names of the sick and manage the ferry transportation to the pesthouses—are having a difficult time convincing people to leave.”

  “Who would want to leave their home and go to one of those God-fors
aken lazzaretti?” The painter’s wife’s voice has lifted to a high-pitched plea. She clutches her baby tightly against her body.

  “They are going to have to start paying people to leave,” says the carpenter’s oldest son. “That is what the baker told me.”

  “The doctor does not come and visit them when they get sick?” I ask. Everyone looks at me with wide eyes.

  “Doctor?” says Trevisan’s journeyman, shaking his head. “What can a medico do? What can anyone do?” He shrugs his skinny shoulders toward his ears. “In the end it is futile to fight the pestilence. Once such a scourge gains a foothold there is no stopping it.”

  Antonella is already in bed when I step into the dark room. I quietly remove my dress in the cold, then pull my linen shift over my head and slide under the woolen blankets. I feel Antonella stir beside me.

  She clears her throat and speaks softly in the darkness. “The wife is spending more time in the studio than usual.”

  The moon casts just enough glow for me to see half of Antonella’s face, a smooth arc of light in the darkness. “I have noticed. I do not know why,” I say.

  Antonella turns toward me, propping her body on her elbow so that the light illuminates all of her face. She makes a soft snorting sound under her breath, almost a laugh. “Is it not obvious? You have turned the painter’s head.”

  I puff air in disbelief and meet her gaze. “What are you talking about?” I say. “That cannot be true.”

  “Why would he not be smitten?” she says, her large black eyes shiny and flashing in the moonlight. “A beautiful young woman like yourself in a tradesman’s workshop. Talented with your hands as well as beautiful. And that hair!” Antonella reaches out and grasps a few strands of my hair that have escaped my braid, turning them between her thumb and forefinger. She picks up my braid to catch the shine in the moonlight, then lets it fall back across my shoulder. I turn onto my back so that my braid presses into the mattress, out of her grasp.