The Painter's Apprentice

by Laura Morelli

  “The boatman was helping him?”

  She nods. “He was only being paid to do a job. He helped transport the sacks in Trevisan’s old gondola.”

  “But the boatman knew what was inside the grain sacks? That it was not actually grain?”

  “Of course,” she says. “They were sharing the profits from the silk that he transported. An advantageous trade for as long as it lasted.”

  “And you also knew about it?”

  She nods.

  “But you did not tell Master Trevisan.”

  She shrugs. “Servants do not share half of what we know. That should be obvious. It is part of our job. Have we not kept your secret so far?”

  So far. I think about the boatman’s request for me to steal from the painter, and my heart begins to pound. I hope that Antonella cannot read panic on my face. “They were caught?” I ask.

  She nods again. “One night the signori di notte followed them from Chioggia. They boarded the painter’s gondola to search the sacks. It was not the only boat they boarded. There were others—skiffs, cargo vessels—a group of them traveling together. That is probably what tipped them off. Some of the boatmen managed to row out of reach, but not our man. They seized the painter’s gondola. That is how the painter found out what his apprentice had been doing the whole time.”

  “Master Trevisan never got his boat back?”

  “No,” she says. “They burned the boat on the pyre to make an example for other smugglers. But the authorities realized that the painter had nothing to do with it. So after the burning, they compensated Master Trevisan for the loss of his boat. That is how he has a new one.”

  “And what happened to the apprentice?”

  Antonella stands and presses her palms on the table. “He was sent to the Doge’s prison for several weeks. We did not hear anything of him for a time. Then one day we heard that his case was judged and that he was sentenced as a rower on the slave galleys,” she says, gesturing toward the window as if we could see the great sailing ships anchored in the lagoon. “Three years.” Suddenly her eyes grow wide and flash. “But then, he escaped!”

  “Escaped? From the Doge’s prisons? How?”

  “When they opened the prison doors to lead him to his sentence on the galleys, he broke free and ran to the docks near the Arsenale. Some of his old friends who had not been caught were waiting there for him. Somehow they had gotten messages to him in the prison. They collected all their money and before they could catch him he was already half way to Pellestrina!” Antonella’s chest heaves, her eyes large and shiny orbs. “He got away with all of it. All of it! Enough to live well on terra firma for the rest of his days.” I see that she is impressed with this feat, that she herself has lived vicariously through this sneaky painter’s apprentice.

  “And the boatman?”

  “Ah, now that is more complicated,” she says, heaving herself back down on the stool. “That hateful wife would have had the boatman put in the Doge’s prisons, too, but the painter said that he only needed to go in the stocks for a while.”

  “And then they let the boatman come back? To work for them?”

  She nods. “Believe me, if he could have found another position he would have, but as you might imagine, it was difficult for him to find another engagement once the news of the smuggling spread. And as he is marked by fire, well…”

  “Master Trevisan had a new boat made and he needed a boatman,” I say.

  She nods. “But things are... delicate. If that painter and his wife treated us poorly before, you can imagine. They are even withholding his salary! Unfair. And he has not found any side jobs yet. He is working on it.” She presses her lips together in a smug expression. “Anyway, the painter thinks he was successful in luring the boatman back, but the reality is that he could not stay away from me any longer.” She bursts out laughing, a haughty, ragged sound. “Ha! So he came back to us. The painter renewed both of our contracts.” Her lips form a tight smile. “I have told you. There is more going on in this house than meets the eye.”

  “You are really having... relations... with the boatman?” I feel compelled to ask. “In the gondola?”

  She sets her black eyes on me. “Where else are we supposed to go? And what do you care? Surely you are not in a position to judge?”

  I remain silent, knowing that she has a point.

  Antonella picks up her broom and a pail, then heads toward the kitchen. “Sometimes we give our hearts to the ones who make the least sense.” Before pushing the door, she takes another long look at me and shakes her head. “Am I right, cara?”

  That night, I dream of Master Trevisan’s gondola gliding to a stop in the narrow canal behind my father’s studio. In my mind’s eye, I see the boatman dressed in a fine ensemble, stepping out of the gondola. He hands my newly gilded box to the battiloro, who stands on the quayside.

  “A treasure for you,” the boatman says, bowing as the gold beater takes the box in his hands. “She made it with her own hands.”

  “There is someone here to see you,” Antonella says when I descend the stairs into the kitchen, my head still heavy with the dream of my Cristiano holding my gilded box in his hands. Antonella is wiping the baby’s face with a rag. When I pass, the little girl squeals with excitement and beats the table with a wooden spoon.

  I place my hand on the door leading to the artist’s studio, but something makes me pause. I hear men’s voices on the other side. My palm rests against the cool wood of the door, and I strain to hear what they are saying.

  “I do not know how much I should tell her.” I hear the voice of Signor Baldi the carpenter. His voice is deep and gentle, and I recognize it immediately.

  “Probably best to let her hear the truth,” I hear the painter say. “Might lessen the shock if something happens.”

  I push open the heavy, swinging door. “Let me hear what?”

  “Signorina Maria,” says the carpenter. His eyes are ringed and dark, but he makes himself smile. “It is a pleasure to see you. You are faring well?”

  “I am... well,” I say, consciously avoiding the urge to touch my stomach. The painter’s wife has set herself near the window with an embroidery ring, while her young son scribbles with a nub of charcoal on a piece of paper lying on the floor. The painter’s wife seems to observe my face carefully.

  “Has something happened?” I ask.

  The carpenter hesitates. “My sons and I have brought you a few more gondola lanterns. Orders from the Squero Vianello,” he says, gesturing to several ornately carved lanterns of raw wood stacked on the worktable. “Signor Vianello the gondola maker asked me to make them and deliver them for you to gild. From the looks of it you have a good side job here.” I walk over and run my hands over the delicate swirls. “We have also made you a few more boxes with lids,” he says. “Federico is bringing them in from the boat,” he says, gesturing to the doorway, through which I can see the boy rummaging around in the small craft similar to a gondola that we call a scipion. The carpenter hesitates, fingering the brim of the hat in his hands.

  “Is something wrong?” I try to meet the carpenter’s eyes but he stares at the floor tiles and rubs his fingers more vigorously along the felted hat.

  “Bene. Since your father is not able to visit you, nor you him, I suppose you do not have much news from the quarter. I have heard about something and I felt it my duty to share it.” He casts his eyes briefly toward Master Trevisan, who gives the carpenter a barely perceptible nod.

  “You have seen my father?”

  “Not directly,” he says, taking a few steps toward me. “I have not been to the house personally as they have blocked the street to visitors, but I trust that all is well.” Behind the carpenter, I see the painter run his hand through his thick hair and finger a few paintbrushes on the table.

  “But?”

  “But my nephew
lives on the edge of the quarter, and he has seen the latest list that the authorities have posted. I am sorry to report that Signora Granchi’s name was on the list. The old lady has died.”

  My first reaction is one of utter relief, followed by shame for feeling such an emotion over the death of the old widow, who has lived upstairs from my father’s workshop my entire life. “I am sorry,” I say. The carpenter nods.

  “Signora Granchi is the widow of one of our indoradòri. She has lived on her husband’s guild pension since his death many years ago,” I say to Master Trevisan.

  Signora Granchi also shared her small garret with at least a dozen cats, which she lured with bits of sardines or the soft shells of the small green crabs we call mołeche, pulled from the brackish retention pools at the edges of the lagoon. I used to watch Signora Granchi haul her stooped, frail body up and down the steps to go to the market each day, cats swirling around her ankles, mewling, fluttering their tails and rising up on their hind legs as she clucked to them through her shriveled mouth. I was always afraid that one of the cats would make her miss a step and fall, surely shattering her fragile bones. The news of her death, though sad, does not surprise me.

  “There is more,” says the carpenter, scratching his beard. “When they went to retrieve the signora’s body, they reported signs of the pestilence.” He lowers his chin and stares at the floor. “Boils.”

  “Dio.” I sit down on one of the wooden stools next to Trevisan’s worktable.

  “Madonna mia!” the painter’s wife wails in a high-pitched voice.

  “How is that possible?” I ask. “She rarely left the house.”

  “Yes, and she was by herself as you know,” the carpenter says. “The pizzicamorti had to break through a window to get into the house.”

  I imagine the old woman’s body brought out of the house while the cats peered down from their perches on her windowsills, and our neighbors looked on from doorways and windows, weeping and covering their noses with scented cloths. I envision the corpse-bearers, the pizzicamorti, those poor souls whose job it is to enter—and break in if needed—to remove the bodies of the plague victims from their infected homes. I feel an involuntary shudder run through my body.

  The carpenter raises his hand. “Not to worry, signorina. It has not spread to your father’s house,” he says. “But, even though they show no signs the Sanità has confined them to home for forty days. It is not only them. Everyone on the street is confined to home in hopes that the contagion will pass.”

  “O Dio! It is getting worse!” The painter’s wife raises her voice even higher.

  The carpenter approaches me and attempts to grasp my hand, but I feel compelled to push it away. “I struggled with whether I should tell you,” says the carpenter, glancing again at the painter. “Master Trevisan felt that you should know the truth.”

  “You have not seen them?”

  “No, as I said the street is closed. But the inspectors said that they are well.”

  “Everyone? My cousin? The battiloro?”

  “Yes, as far as we know.”

  I exhale audibly.

  The painter’s wife is fanning herself, one hand on her bulging belly. “Oh dear God, we must have a mass for the signora. What a horror!” She stands and begins pacing around the studio. “Che Dio ci aiuti!”

  Little Gianluca begins to cry.

  “You are upsetting the children,” the painter says to his wife. “And you are going to upset Maria, too, cara. Will you please leave us in peace?”

  The painter’s wife ignores her husband’s request. “Madonna mia, what if they are transported to the lazzaretti? What if they die? What will happen to Maria?”

  The painter’s wife has given words to my worst fears, and I feel that I might vomit again.

  “Donata!” says the painter sharply to his wife. “Per carità! You must not say such things.”

  The carpenter scratches his lined forehead, and for a moment, I think I see his hand shaking. “Well, if, God forbid, that were to happen, then surely the guild would pay Maria’s bereavement stipend according to the mariregole guild statutes. That is under your gastaldo’s jurisdiction. It would be his job to make sure that she is cared for. In our guild, where I am gastaldo, it is my responsibility to make sure that funds are dispersed to bury dead, dower daughters, cover stipends for widows or those who are sick.”

  “It will not happen,” I say, standing with my fists balled next to my hips.

  “Of course not, cara,” the carpenter says, trying to grasp my hand again. This time I do not resist. “You are right,” he says. “They will be fine. I am certain of it.” His eyes look sunken and tired, but he pulls his mouth into a firm grin as he squeezes my hand.

  From the corner of my eye, I see the painter’s wife cross herself, then press her hand to her mouth as if forcing herself not to speak.

  Chapter 30

  It is the silence that lures me from my bed. Long before the first streaks of orange break the horizon, the hens should be making their bruck-brucking sounds while they scratch the straw below our window as if nervously awaiting the sun. But this morning, there is only a strange stillness.

  In any case I have not slept, my mind haunted by the image of Signora Granchi’s pestilent body pulled from the window above my father’s house. In the dark silence, I draw my dress and cloak over my head and tiptoe down the stairs. I step out into the alley that runs behind the hennery. I shall walk to Cannaregio all the way from San Marco, for the last thing I want to do is ask the boatman for a favor.

  I know I am taking a risk, but I cannot help myself. I need to see them with my own eyes.

  As soon as I emerge from Master Trevisan’s house it is clear why the birds have fallen into a stupor.

  Caìgo.

  It is the kind of deep fog that only rolls into Our Most Serene City once or twice a year. I step into the street and I am enveloped in a heavy cloud of white. In the thick blanket of mist, I make my way tentatively from doorway to doorway, for it is as far as I can see. The white air hangs just inches from the cobblestones beneath my feet, and I see only the toes of my shoes. Everything beside me and in front of my face is obscured in the thick cloud that has descended.

  My quarter of the city, which has felt so far away these last months, should only take a short time to reach on foot. But in the nearly opaque mist, I make my way slowly from a wooden post marking the edge of a canal to the stone doorjamb of a fine house; from a wrought-iron grille of a window to the dark silhouette of a stone well-head in the middle of a small square. Dawn should have broken, but as I step through the mud around a laundry trough, the air hangs dark and heavy with wet mist that fills my lungs. My cloak feels weighted, covered in a fine, web-like mist of small droplets.

  I cross over a rickety wooden bridge with no railing, looking ahead to what was always a busy thoroughfare, now quiet. The streets are barren. As I approach Cannaregio, an acrid smell of burning wood fills the air. I feel a slight alarm and move quickly across a small campo. I pull my light scarf over my head and wrap it in front of my nose to ward off the smoky smell.

  I no longer care that I am at risk. I must see my family. And if the battiloro wants me, if he loves me, if he wants his child, that is all that matters. I do not know how much time we have.

  I walk ahead in a daze, turning down a familiar market street I have traversed for as long as I can remember. In the early morning hours such as this, the fruit sellers, butchers, cobblers, and clothing merchants should be calling out to us, their voices casting echoes against the stone buildings in the narrow alleys.

  But the streets have fallen grey and silent, devoid of life, as if everyone has vanished. There is no market. No shoppers. No fruit sellers. No one. Only a strangely familiar street now shrouded in white as if in a dream.

  I move like a ghost through the maze of alleys, picking my way along
the cracked stucco walls. I pass the brick façade of Madonna dell’Orto, the parish church where Father Filippo poured water on my head when I was just eight weeks old, and where, some twelve years later, in a stifling narrow booth I had confessed to the same Father Filippo about the feelings I had for another gilder’s son down the street. I pass the bakery where my father used to send me to buy bread encrusted with raisins, and where Signora Pegano was known for making the best sweet cakes at Easter. The windows are boarded and still. On the same street, Signor Fabio’s tailoring shop and the elder Signor Calvi’s cobbler’s bench stand dark and quiet, their doors boarded and their windows tightly battened.

  When I arrive at the barricade, it is barely visible in the fog. I run my hands across the wood, feeling for a plank that might be loose, or a place where loved ones might have made a hole to push through food or gifts. They have already repaired the hole where I tried to hike my leg the last time. The wood feels rough under my palm, and I feel that at any moment a splinter might find its way under my skin.

  “Signorina!”

  The face of the young guardia appears before me, hazy in the mist. “You again!” He says. “We have already told you. You cannot go through. Official orders. Toderino!” He calls out to another guard who remains invisible in the mist.

  The young man reaches out to grasp my arm. “Come with me, signorina.”

  I feel the man’s fingers brush my sleeve but I turn on my heel and run with abandon into the white wall of fog.

  I cannot make it far without stopping to catch my breath. I duck into a doorway and stop to gasp for air.

  After a few minutes, my heartbeat slows. I no longer hear the footsteps of the guards.

  Next to me is a building with a narrow lip of stones projecting over the edge of a canal. I remove my worn leather shoes and press them into the deep pocket of my shawl. I reach up to grasp the molding of a windowsill with the tips of my fingers. Tentatively, I step onto the narrow projection, feeling the cold stones under my toes. For a moment I hold my position, making sure that I can support myself with only my fingertips and the small pads of my toes. One misstep and I will splash into the coldness of the water below me.