The Watercolourist

by Beatrice Masini

  Bianca feels agitation building up inside her. Something she hasn’t felt before. She isn’t dressed appropriately; her cape isn’t heavy enough; she is wearing the wrong shoes, no gloves, no vest. It is winter after all. Where are they going, on a winter’s night, all dressed in black, two men and a woman, and no chaperone? She imagines them talking about her later: No, Miss Bianca stayed home tonight. Actually, she followed them for a bit until they pushed her out of the carriage and then they left her on the pavement. She was not needed. No one wanted her there. Adieu, go home, go back to bed with your books; can’t you see we’re busy living? The other Bianca, the one who is invited to come along on the adventure, sits up straight.

  He is sitting so close to her. To touch him, all she needs to do is reach out her arm. What an idea! Why should she touch him? Why indeed. Innes’s warmth emanates from under his clothing. Bianca no longer feels cold, maybe she has a fever. It has to be a fever, this kind of fire inside her, a little below her heart.

  The carriage slows down and then comes to a full stop. They have arrived. Don Titta steps out without offering to help her. Innes does, though. But he doesn’t lower the stairs. He just picks her up by the waist and lifts her down. She smells tobacco and spices, and then the frigid cold takes her breath away. The street is empty. Via a small stone bridge, they pass over the canal. There, two churches stand side by side like old friends.

  The silence is interrupted by the sound of footsteps. Another caped figure arrives, this one with messy curls and the flash of a familiar smile. It is Tommaso.

  ‘So you’ve come, too,’ Innes says, with some disapproval.

  ‘How could I miss out on this madness?’ His grin, growing wider, turns into a smirk. ‘What about her?’

  Her? Me? What am I, a parcel, an object? Bianca thinks, taking a step forward to stand her ground.

  ‘Why not?’ Innes says. ‘Come on, there’s no time to waste.’

  The driver has already lowered a trunk, placed it on the ground and opened it up.

  ‘The light?’

  ‘Here it is.’

  Sparks fly, the fuse catches, and light is cast on Ruggiero’s round face. Bianca sees now that he bites his lip and looks around furtively. What sort of game is this?

  The cold has all but disappeared. Innes and Don Titta take turns fishing out fragile wooden and canvas objects from the trunk. Lanterns. They light them, stuff them with small scrolls of paper and toss them up in the air, giving an extra push to the more fickle ones, which fall back down. Once she gets a clear picture of what is going on, Bianca helps, passing the lanterns – which are fragile in her hands – to the person who is ready to light them. Over and over. Several drift down towards the water and go out with a brief sizzle. But a small horde swarms into the sky above, their light reflecting off the black waters. A few catch fire – a brief flame and then nothing. Many endure and take flight.

  There are more pieces of paper than lanterns, so once she has finished assisting, Bianca takes one out and unravels it.

  ‘People of Milan, friends, and strangers: now, when we have most to fear, is the time for us to be courageous . . .’

  Tommaso reads out loud over her shoulder, almost too close to her, painfully present.

  ‘Well put, Titta. Now it’s my turn. I have my own system and it might be more efficient than yours.’

  Innes shakes his head while Tommaso takes a handful of papers, goes down to the canal, pulls out a few small boats made of waxed canvas from his sack, and launches them into the water.

  ‘I should have used bottles, like the castaways that we are.’

  Don Titta, who has been silently contemplating his flying messages, leans out over the bridge and mutters some words, indistinctly at first, as if weighing them, then more loudly.

  Giochi dolceamaro, bimbo mio:

  affidi le tue barche alla corrente

  ignaro e sorridente

  pago del loro navigar di stella

  nel piccolo mare dei tuoi occhi . . .

  Bittersweet games, my child:

  Entrust your boats to the current unknowing

  And smiling, repaid for their

  Journey under the stars

  In the small sea of your eyes . . .

  ‘Titta, Titta, our private wandering minstrel,’ Tommaso teases from below. ‘You have a rhyme for every occasion. As usual, I’m envious.’

  The cold is even more acute now, the flickering lights growing distant in the night sky and on the water; the trunk is empty, the wick has died out, and Ruggiero is back at his place in the driver’s seat of the carriage.

  ‘Are you going home?’ Innes asks Tommaso in an effort to be polite.

  ‘You know I have no place to live. There’s a party at the Crivellis’. I might stop by. He has invited some French girls.’ He smacks his lips.

  Innes frowns.

  ‘Don Titta’s right. Everything is just a big game for you.’

  ‘And what’s wrong with that, my friend? It is night-time; we have engaged in a most civil and noble folly – a nice, reckless gesture that will not amount to anything. I tell you, we could just as well have risked more.’

  He bows mockingly to Bianca and blows her a kiss. Then he turns around, raises his arm in a goodbye, and walks back along the shoreline to join his friends.

  Don Titta doesn’t say a word. He still contemplates the vanishing lights.

  ‘He’s right. Our message will only end up educating the washerwomen. We weren’t daring enough, Innes. It’s the heart of this city that needs to be reawakened. The higher the risk, the greater the reward.’

  ‘This is only the start, Titta. Our first time. We are mere beginners, schoolchildren. We will learn to do better. There’s the lake, the sea, and as much sky as we’d like. Now let’s head back.’

  Bianca is startled for a moment when Innes says ‘lake’. A fleet of wooden ships on her lake? Please, no rebellion, only poetry. Now the tutor turns to face her, making her visible again, real.

  ‘Come on, it’s late for you.’

  He takes her gently by the elbow and leads her towards the carriage. She trips, her legs frozen with cold. He swiftly picks her up, as though they are dancing, and places her inside the carriage. He then clambers in himself, followed by Don Titta. Ruggiero flicks the reins and the horses set out for home.

  Everything looks much smaller from the carriage on the return trip. Don Titta slumps back against the seat, his long legs in their tight-fitting trousers stretched out before him, his hand resting palm up on top of his knee, as if asking for something. She dreams of putting her hand in his, a kind of silent gift. Surprise, an awkward press of skin against skin, a reverse handshake. Innes, seated close to his friend, cannot take his eyes off her. Three is plainly one too many.

  They arrive home and shuffle up the stairs, each to his own room. No ‘goodnights’ are exchanged; the night will not be a good one, it will only bring wide-eyed reflection.

  The next morning, her shoes look like papier mâché. The soles have peeled off and the upper part is damp and hard. She ends up hiding them at the bottom of the cloakroom, so that no one will find them, not even the maids, who always have something to say. But Alcina finds them anyway and dangles them in front of the others in the kitchen.

  ‘If Miss Bianca wants to go out and run free at night, she should at least wear her overshoes or a nice pair of boots. Am I right?’

  ‘Yes, you are. But you know that young ladies have their heart in their feet. They’re head over heels, I tell you!’

  ‘As long as someone doesn’t come knocking . . . and knock her up!’ Raucous laughter ensues. Bianca walks in, snatches the shoes from Alcina and walks away. Fortunately, because of their strange dialect, she hasn’t understood a thing.

  The long, harsh winter seems never to end. Perhaps it is the ailments that afflict the children, but a grey patina shrouds the windows of the house on Via Morone. No one goes out, for fear of infection. And they don’t receive any guests
for the same reason. It is the horrible boredom of February. Everywhere it is the same. What is the point of going to visit friends only to hear them talk about mucus and phlegm?

  It has even happened in the famous salon of Signora Trivulzio. What an odd place that is, Bianca thinks. It is as if the salon exists in a bubble: its four rooms of yellow damask, those candles laid out on great big trays of silver instead of in the usual candelabras, the waiters in yellow, blending in with the tapestry. Bianca imagines it as if it were a theatre set – a house without kitchens, bedrooms or closets. She thinks of a stage, and behind the curtain, the props: Signora Trivulzio’s costumes hanging on a rack, her shoes lined up on a strip of carpet, and an elegant toilette replete with little bottles ready for her maquillage.

  Bianca wishes she could share these thoughts with someone. Innes has gone to Magenta to discuss some new academic theories with Pellico, his oft-mentioned but never-seen colleague. Maybe, like Signora Trivulzio’s house, Pellico doesn’t really exist either.

  Don Titta has authorized Innes’s leave and actually encourages him to go; he plans on joining them and his own friend, the host, Count Porro Lambertenghi. Bianca tries to imagine the four of them together, the ranks mixed in the way these liberal patricians enjoy and Donna Clara does not. But in her present situation, the older lady cannot oppose resistance.

  Donna Clara is tired and grey, like everything around her. For the first time she looks weak. She is curiously compliant and more considerate with others, a behaviour that only a short while ago she abhorred. With her son gone and her daughter-in-law banished to her own quarters due to a bout of her secret illness that everyone knows about and nobody speaks of, she does nothing. Bianca is reluctantly made witness to the sad display of this weak and vulnerable Donna Clara.

  ‘Things change, the world changes. And when you don’t like it any more, they say you simply no longer understand it. That you’re ageing. I don’t understand all these polemics based on good government and the rest of it. Who are we to say that one man is good and another is not? Kings, believe me, are all the same. And the people without a king is like a chicken with its head cut off.’

  ‘But you aren’t the people. We are the people,’ Bianca ventures.

  They are sitting in the boudoir next to Donna Clara’s bedroom, a small room, usually well lit but gloomy now, like the rest of the house. They are having coffee, a speciality blend purchased from ‘the Turk’, who isn’t really Turkish, but who has a shop at the end of Corsia dei Servi. Neither the aroma nor the heat of the beverage, sweetened with pillows of whipped cream, is able to lift the old woman’s spirits.

  ‘No, we aren’t the people. We are women. We float somewhere between here and there, tied down by ropes, like great balloons.’

  Bianca holds back a smile as she imagines a fleet of women floating ten feet above ground, tied down by the ankles, bobbing lightly in the breeze.

  ‘It’s as if they’ve created a limbo just for us,’ Donna Clara continues. ‘When we are useful – for love, children, looking after the house – they pull us down. Otherwise they just leave us there, in the air, so we don’t cause too much disturbance, with the excuse that we are light and can’t possibly understand. Thirty years ago it was the same thing. Nothing has changed. Heads still roll, blood is spilled, everything seems as though it’s about to change, but then we are right back where we started. A woman’s only power is her beauty, and then it fades. If I had a choice, I’d be the girl who could still fit into that corset over there.’ She motions towards a half-dressed mannequin covered in a delicate architecture of sticks, lace and silk. ‘I used to laugh, drink champagne and chat with the most refined intellectuals in the world, in Paris. Look at me now; look at what I’ve turned into. I can’t even glance at myself in the mirror for fear of seeing the other me. I’ve turned into a peasant woman, sanctimoniously sent to the country for eight months of the year and the rest of the time a prisoner of this city, surrounded by the blood and urine of children.’

  Bianca shudders, as she always does when Donna Clara shifts from formal to personal with her. She never knows whether to consider it a concession of intimacy or a gesture of slight disdain. The old woman keeps talking. Bianca realizes it makes no difference how she responds.

  ‘She won’t last, that one,’ Donna Clara continues in dialect.

  ‘What, beauty?’ Bianca asks, trying to understand.

  ‘No, no,’ Donna Clara replies. ‘My daughter-in-law, she’s too delicate for this world. She’s like this piece of china.’

  She holds up a cup. It is almost transparent in its delicacy. With the flames from the fireplace flickering behind it, it really does look like a shell. She puts it down.

  ‘When she dies, what will we do?’

  Bianca feels obliged to alleviate such pessimism.

  ‘What are you talking about? It’s just the winter. It’s been hard on us all. When the nice weather comes, signora will regain her strength, you’ll see.’

  Bianca doesn’t really believe her own words. Why is the poet away with other men discussing things that are only important to him instead of being here, alongside the woman he has married, who is suffering? How can he not know that any day could be her last? Is he a monster? Has he simply given up? Or does he know something that no one else does? Bianca has seen Donna Julie run to her room, racked with coughing. The children have thrown all sorts of tantrums to hide their fear. Anxiety is everywhere: in the eyes of the help, in the presence of the doctor’s coach in the courtyard, and in the red-splotched handkerchiefs that the washerwoman sluice again and again, trying to restore them to their original whiteness. Too many children, too much life.

  In spite of this, Donna Julie always appears so serene, wrapped in a peacefulness that softens the effects of grief and transforms them into a sweet, deaf, anticipatory nostalgia. It is as if she has already gone far away and will return only for brief visits. The world is too much for her. Her absence is felt more than that of her husband; the children ask about her unrelentingly and are allowed only brief visits, one at a time. They sit in line outside her door. Bianca sees them waiting patiently and silently, their feet dangling from the sofa, their eyes fixed on the door handle, eager to see it open. If the old woman is right, there won’t be much time before they will be left only with the bitter tears of loss.

  Two weeks pass. Bianca finishes a new series of drawings, divides them into their separate folders, and gives orders for them to be picked up. She feels liberated. Instead of putting on her smock after her morning tea, she pulls on her gloves, hat and redingote.

  ‘I’m going out,’ she announces to no one in particular, and runs downstairs with the frenzy of a child who has been freed from her tutor.

  ‘She’s as mad as a horse, but I suppose that’s why we like her,’ Donna Clara says before devouring her oeuf au vin, which she has requested for additional sustenance at breakfast. She, too, is trying to combat the recent weakness she has been feeling. She has said it must be due to the change in the weather.

  Donna Julie’s health has, in the meantime, improved. A miraculous recovery brings her back to the centre of her world – her home and children. The unsettled climate of the past few days is suddenly replaced by mannerist optimism.

  Bianca doesn’t hear Donna Clara’s comment as she leaves and it wouldn’t have mattered to her anyway. She is already in the courtyard, admiring the intense blue rectangle of sky above their house. She smiles at Rossetti, the doorman, and gives him her final instructions: the folders should not get bent and the servant who picks them up should treat them with great care.

  Via Morone is as bleak and grey as always but that turquoise strip of sky hangs like a path that needs to be followed. She heads towards the open spaces of the Corsia del Giardino, with its coming and going of carriages. On her left she sees La Scala poking out into the piazza like the great chair of a giant. Bianca crosses the street and heads towards the arches where it is said that a maiden with an unforgiving
name died of a forbidden love. She passes under them as if they are the entrance to a new world, and walks on through the gardens of Acqualunga, watching the ducks and thinking of her own lake at her father’s house. She isn’t concerned with botany today so doesn’t even notice the young fan-like leaves of the ginkgo tree, which blow in the wind like small flags. She has a destination.

  She walks around the pond, passing well-behaved children and their governesses who are busily launching wooden boats that have waited all winter to come out. Girls jump skipping ropes and play with hoops. Two men on horseback look over the scene benevolently. A young lady in light blue stands in an arc of sunlight. It is a perfect tableau vivant for this first day of sunshine. It is not yet spring but it feels like it.

  Bianca suddenly notices that an old woman in rags has approached the young lady in blue. She speaks to her, gestures, and holds out her hand. The lady in blue takes a step back, freezes, then turns around, fumbling for something in her bag and handing it to the woman. Then she leaves in a hurry. The tableau is ruined, but the occurrence is interesting. What had the old woman wanted? And why was she so insistent? Maybe she had a secret to sell, a secret like the one Bianca is about to buy herself.

  The sunlight disappears into a cloud of haze, as if it has been siphoned out of the picture. It is now only a sour, cold March morning. The chill makes Bianca quicken her step. As she walks she looks at her reflection in the windows and likes what she sees. A young, independent woman taking great strides in the world, on her own. It had been easy. No, that wasn’t true. But it hadn’t been all that hard either. Mainly, it just happened. Could it have taken place any other way? Was there another way to be content and at ease in the world? Bianca sighs and then smiles to answer her own question. A gentleman, passing her, tips his hat, as if to return her greeting. Bianca smiles again at the misunderstanding, and then turns back. The gentleman slows and turns, too, flashing her a grin. Bianca hastens her step. He was a stranger – how embarrassing! Part of her, though, almost wishes that he would follow her. After a while she turns back again, but he is now far away.