Bianca hesitates. How embarrassing it would be to buy secrets. Then, on impulse, she decides that she likes this boy, that two scudi isn’t that much and anyway, she would have spent them sooner or later.
‘Can you read?’ she asks.
‘No, Miss, I can’t, but my friend can. And anyway my memory is good. I keep everything up here,’ the boy taps his temple.
The transaction is quickly concluded. She gives her name, they set a date to meet again and she pays half of the compensation. She will pay the other half once the information is retrieved, in precisely two weeks, in the same place, at noon.
What do I have to lose but money? Bianca asks herself, placing the coin on the child’s curiously clean palm. If only Pia’s happiness could cost so little.
‘What is your name?’ she asks.
‘Girolamo,’ he says, taking off his hat. ‘Here to serve you, Miss.’
He runs off before Bianca has the chance to question him further. Instead she follows him with her eyes and watches him disappear down a dark alley that swallows him up as if he was made of the same matter. She leaves reluctantly then, feeling the weight of things unfinished.
Her feet move her forward while her mind retraces the encounter. She lingers on a phrase, embroiders a detail, and doesn’t notice where she is going. As if waking from a trance, she finds herself seated on a stone bench by a big brick church. She has no idea how she has got there. She regains her senses, feels the cold seeping in under her clothes, and around her the heavy stares of men. No, these aren’t men; they are dirty delivery boys bringing rolls of hides to the leather artisans in the area. The air is swampy; she is near the canal, and it gives off a diabolical stench.
I need to get out of here, Bianca thinks. She stands up with resolve, ties her hat ribbons under her chin, jumps over some puddles of dark liquid, and then looks up and around for the golden Madonna statue, a beacon for people navigating the streets of the city.
Miss Bianca, where on earth did you ruin your skirt like that? In the Naviglio? one of the maids will probably ask her later. Carlina, Titina, Annina . . . they lead their lives in the shadows, give themselves up to some dolt, and then become forgettable like all the others. She won’t answer their questions if they ask. And she doesn’t answer the question that she suddenly hears behind her, making her jump.
‘Miss Bianca! You aren’t lost, are you? Miss Bianca?’
She is just about to turn around but he is faster and steps in front of her. It is Tommaso. He greets her, taking off his hat and offering her his cheek. How different he is outside; no longer a shy extra, so much surer of himself. Bianca hesitates.
‘I understand the cloudy allure of our shadows,’ he continues. ‘And I understand what drives you here: boredom is stronger than a machine.’
Bianca is silent but then regains control of herself.
‘Ah, but I am never bored. Maybe you were bored – is that why you ran away? Or did your muse allow you to leave?’
She finds that this is the right sort of tone for him, the affectionate banter of siblings.
‘My muse, my muse,’ he replies, guiding her quickly across a wide field beyond which stands a row of luminous Greek-style columns. ‘My muse is a tyrant, that’s for sure. But my muse is also my only faithful partner. I can’t be with her, and I can’t be without her. I won’t ask what you were doing in that sewer in full daylight,’ he adds, meaning the opposite.
Bianca decides to take him at face value and remains silent.
‘You are indeed mysterious, Miss Bianca.’
‘Me? I’m like a piece of white paper,’ she replies teasingly.
‘An appropriate comparison. Anything can sprout from it. Perhaps it was already written but in the ink of conspirators, revealing itself only to the astute eye . . .’
‘Oh, be quiet. Don’t we have enough conspirators around the house already?’
A skilful move: Tommaso’s attention is diverted.
‘Don’t be like Donna Clara, I beg you. She sees shadows everywhere,’ he says.
‘That’s because she is afraid for all of you,’ replies Bianca immediately.
‘And for herself. She couldn’t bear to lose what she has built with such tenacity. Her little citadel of ease and respectability would topple down if her most intimate guests and her very own son insisted on playing politics.’
‘And isn’t she right to worry? She’s a woman: she defends what she has. Her horizon is the house and the garden.’
‘Exactly. And she can’t see beyond the front door. But the day will come when women will stand by our sides instead of lagging one step behind.’
‘Like in a dance?’ Bianca tries to joke.
‘Certainly. At the great ball of the new world.’
Without realizing it, Tommaso has quickened his pace, and Bianca is forced to almost run to keep up.
‘Slow down,’ she protests.
‘I apologize but these discussions touch me deeply,’ he says, amending his gait.
‘More than poetry?’
‘Much more. We should all have the courage to hang our harps from the willow tree; the heart cannot sing if it isn’t free.’
Bianca is silent. She is touched. This Tommaso is completely different from the one she knows. He is so intense and alive.
As they walk silently towards the house, a house that belongs to neither of them but which they have both made their own, united in their search for a calling, she almost forgets what happened earlier.
‘If you suspected something, Innes . . . something good, that could do a person dear to you some good, that could change her life, what would you do?’
‘If it was only a suspicion? Nothing, my dear. I would keep it to myself, and I’d try to make it a certainty.’ Precisely. Even Innes would do as she has done. So why not confide in him? Could he be her ally, her accomplice? He is so capable and in control. ‘But to change someone’s life is presumptuous, Bianca. If I were you, I’d take care.’ He is also so inflexible. As straight as a cypress tree. A man of only logic. ‘I know you, Bianca. You are plotting something. I can see it, and I don’t like it.’
They are alone in the living room, waiting to be called to lunch. The long, dull moments in a large household.
‘Oh, come now, don’t be so serious. I was just wondering.’ She thinks it best to be light-hearted to distract him. She will only tell him when it is necessary. Only when every bit of evidence is clear. In the meantime she defends herself. ‘You are always plotting, too. You and Don Titta. I see you. Sometimes I can even hear you. No, don’t worry, I can hear but I don’t listen. But I do sense something even from behind closed doors.’
‘What you do not know will not harm you, Bianca.’
He is so serious he is almost frightening. And yet he is, too, a man to whom gravity is becoming, perhaps because he is then especially handsome when laughing or smiling. Like now: his whole face is lit up with a smile, distracting her.
‘I’m happy to be a source of laughter for you,’ Bianca says condescendingly.
But she is just teasing and he knows it. In fact, he takes her arm and grips it firmly before letting it go.
‘I, too, would like to be entertaining to you but I fear that I don’t have such an amusing personality.’
‘If I wanted to be entertained, I’d go to the theatre, where everything is pretend, even passion. It’s real passion that interests me. Your passion,’ she says.
He misunderstands, perhaps on purpose.
‘Mine? There’s little passion here. Horses, maybe, but I cannot afford my own. Literature, yes, because it costs less. Life, with all that it sets aside: surprises and trapdoors, twists and turns.’
‘In one word, revolution.’ Bianca indulges herself but he doesn’t react.
‘I like you because you never give up, Bianca.’
Since when does he know her so well? The idea that he thinks he knows her deeply makes her wonder. Or is it something else, this strange and growing in
timacy? Bianca isn’t sure, so she keeps quiet. The pair exchange glances. Bianca feels confused, light-headed and naive. Their exchange has been far from innocent.
‘It’s not right, Titta. It’s not right at all.’ It is evident that Donna Clara is in a bad mood as soon as she starts complaining about the wrinkles in the tablecloth. There is only one, Bianca notes, and it is almost imperceptible and for the most part covered by the pewter centrepiece overflowing with tulips. Then Donna Clara complains about the tepid and flavourless consommé. And the soft bread. When the food is not to her liking, there is usually something else she isn’t happy about. It doesn’t take long before she explains. ‘They say that the Austrian gendarmes visited the Viganò family and it wasn’t as a simple courtesy.’
‘Yes, I heard about it, too,’ Don Titta says calmly.
‘They say that Count Eugenio had quite a shock. They say,’ she continues, lifting up a letter that has been resting on her lap, ‘that they might come by here. I am going to put my foot down and say no, Titta. These indulgences have got to stop. They say’ – her tone goes up a notch as she waves the letter about – ‘that you refused to write an ode for the new general whose name I can’t even pronounce. They asked you to write it but you said no, so they asked Monti, and he agreed and got a hefty compensation, as well as praise from the governor. Is this true?’
‘Yes, Mother, it’s true. How can you doubt your informers?’
‘Don’t play with me, Titta. You didn’t say anything.’ In the frenzy of this discussion, her son is reduced to a rebellious child. ‘May I remind you that money is necessary to survive? May I also remind you that in order to live there must be peace? And peace must be cultivated.’
‘That which you call peace, Mother, I call collusion. Complicity.’
‘Ah, I see. I wonder why we never attribute the same meaning to some words. But fine, let’s pretend to be a gang of rebels. We’ll all end up with our heads chopped off, like the queen.’
‘Mother, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Aren’t the Austrians notorious for being intelligent governors?’
Donna Clara misses the irony or perhaps chooses to ignore it.
‘What do you think – that the era of Theresa is over? They’re not standing there just for fun. But anyway, I don’t want to have a political discussion.’ She pronounces the word with a grimace. ‘I just want to say that your rekindling of patriotic love might take the bread away from the mouths of your children.’
Donna Clara looks around the room to see the effect of her words on the others. Bianca stares at Tommaso, who in turn stares at the pale turnips on the dinner table. He has no intention of intervening. Innes watches a blackbird hopping on the windowsill. Outside it is drizzling.
‘I would rather starve than eat from a foreigner’s hand,’ Don Titta says calmly. ‘My children won’t die of hunger: we always have the countryside and its fruits.’
‘Right, and what about the creditors lined up outside our door?’
‘Can we please stop discussing these things in front of everyone?’ Donna Julie interrupts, blushing, a sour note in her voice.
‘Everyone?’ Donna Clara blurts out, making Bianca feel like a decorative object. ‘It’s not like we’re going to get through this by hiding facts behind good manners. I have nothing left to give you, nothing. I’ve sold my most precious joys . . .’
Bianca looks at Donna Clara’s hands, heavy as ever with diamond rings and other valuable stones. Clearly, she thinks to herself, those are less precious joys.
‘No one asked you for a thing, Mother dear,’ Don Titta says. ‘You’ve given us a home and your affection, and this is the greatest gift. Don’t worry. We will manage. The novel—’
‘The novel, the novel! You’ve been working on it for ten years. Ten! And what about those beautiful poems that brought you bread and fame at the same time? I don’t mean the ones for the Austrians – God no, let us not soil our hands if we really want to play at being heroes. But at least the others. The innocent ones. What went wrong?’
‘They were useless, Mother. Useless word games for useless people who sit in their living rooms drinking rose-water and concealing their laughter. I’m tired of creating useless things. Just have faith, and you’ll see.’
‘I do have faith, but in the dear Lord, not in your soiled paper . . .’
‘Signora, may I serve you some soufflé?’
In his many years of service, Ruggiero has learned how to clear the air over the dining-room table. And, as suddenly as it arrives, the storm dissipates. Bianca, who would have voluntarily collapsed onto the floor a moment before to create a distraction, now exchanges furtive glances with Innes and sinks her fork into the golden mound on her plate. Donna Julie’s face is pale. She has deep, crocus-coloured shadows beneath her eyes. It is another small, pathetic family brawl, no more important just because it is about money and pride. Incriminations are launched without tactic and accusations swell out of proportion. These aren’t battles. They are just card games in which everyone is bluffing. At least the soufflé holds up. And, thankfully, lunch ends soon after.
Later, in the living room, Bianca opens the French window to feel the cold air outside. The winter garden appears to have shrunk. Those trees, which will never be part of a forest but which try so hard to grow nonetheless, give her a sense of refuge and relief. City life is complicated. It is onerous to be so intimate with a family that is not one’s own, and to be part of the burden. The simplicity of nature would restore her, she thinks, even if she were a prisoner.
She slips into the darkness, breathing in the dank smell of dead leaves and wrapping her shawl tightly around her. The cold clears her mind. Who is right – the women of the house with their small concerns, or the poet? He is brave, yes, but perhaps he is also thoughtless. Is it more important to protect the nest and defend it from turbulence and change or journey untethered towards the unknown? What manly questions, she tells herself with a hint of irony. She is proud of having thought of them, even though she doesn’t know the answers. She has no connections to tie her down, no big ideas to carry her away. She only has some intelligence, talent and a spark of imagination that is enough to nurture both.
‘Noisy as always, no?’
It is Innes.
‘You scared me,’ she says.
‘I don’t believe you. You didn’t even blink before Donna Clara’s wrath.’
‘Because they weren’t talking to me. But I felt oppressed nonetheless. No, rather, I felt like a bird in a cage being clawed at by a cat.’
‘I understand. You will get used to it. As you know, Italians are always a bit theatrical. But it’s a tempest in a teapot. He always does what he pleases.’
‘You admire him.’
‘At times. I care about him, and therefore I forgive him some things.’
Bianca finds it difficult to decipher Innes’s facial expression in the darkness.
‘And I care about you too, don’t get me wrong. But everything passes, even words as heavy as stone. Only art is destined to last. Only that counts.’
She receives a package. It is wrapped in damask printed with tiny flowers on a pale background. It is heavy in her palm and tied with a bright green silk ribbon. Bianca sits on her bed and pulls the ribbon impatiently. The fabric falls away and a smooth, round, white rock appears. It is almost too smooth to be natural. She turns it over in her hands and notices a pale vein where the stone is slightly hollow. Only time could have done that. There is a note that says in small capital letters, NIVEA LAPIS. White stone. Her name set in stone. Bianca Pietra smiles. She weighs the stone in her hand again and caresses it with the tip of her index finger, testing its dense yet porous consistency. She wonders who sent it, but puts the thought aside. It won’t get her anywhere. Oh, to be a stone once in a while, impenetrable, impermeable.
Her father once gave her a coat of arms with the motto Semper Firma underneath it. The insignia was of a white stone resting on a horse-chestnut leaf on a blue
background. The mysterious gift-giver must know about her father’s present. But no, she thinks, that is impossible; no-one knows about this, it happened years ago, and the coat of arms disappeared long ago too. Could it be that someone simply had the same thought as her father? She asks herself if this is a gift or a warning. But it is somehow nice not to know. The stone is not an egg. It can never be cracked open. It will forever hold its mystery and this makes it both dangerous and beautiful.
One night Bianca cannot sleep. Having finished all her books, she leaves her bedroom, intent on choosing one or two new ones from the library, which Bianca is sure will be empty at this hour – the men have gone out. From the staircase where she is standing, the house appears murky grey. A sliver of moon, visible through the skylight, lights her path. But after two or three steps, Bianca realizes she is not alone. Tall twin shadows are standing in the entrance. And although they are dressed in heavy overcoats, she recognizes them and is instantly curious. Should she go back to her room, pretend not to have seen anything? No. She goes down the stairs. She isn’t doing anything wrong. The pair look at her briefly, and nod. Innes speaks first.
‘Would you like to come with us?’
‘Where?’
He puts a finger to his lips.
‘Come.’
Don Titta walks back and forth impatiently. His cape dances around him, falling and swishing with his movement. Innes disappears into the closet and comes back with a third cape. He holds it out for her. It feels like a yoke on her shoulders. He responds to her quizzical look with a flash in his eyes that she has never seen before and which makes her even more curious. Her hesitation lasts only a second. She will not say no. Innes hooks the cape under her throat, the way a father would, and takes her by the hand. The intimacy of the gesture makes her flinch.
There is a sound at the door – the signal. They go outside. The cold February night air is as clean as glass. The cobblestones in the piazza are covered with a thin film of ice that shines under the street lamps. She has just enough time to hop into the carriage before it starts on its way. She smells the damp fabric inside and sees small clouds of her breath in the momentary light. Don Titta looks out at the shadowy city. It is deserted. Innes, seated next to her, tries to speak to her with his eyes. But what is he trying to say?
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