Bitter Greens

by Kate Forsyth

  Far away, the ethereal sound of singing rose. Tears wet on her face, Margherita listened. It sounded like angels. ‘Who is that singing?’ she asked.

  ‘It is the figlie di coro,’ Suòra Gratiosa answered, dabbing away her tears. ‘If you’re a good girl, maybe one day you’ll learn to sing just like them.’

  The music cast its enchantment on her. Her body no longer racked by sobs, Margherita’s thumb found its way into her mouth. Her other hand crept up and found a tendril of hair, and she began to wind it about her fingers. Gradually, she drifted away into a troubled sleep.

  SUNSHINE AND SHADOW

  Ospedale della Pietà, Venice, Italy – 1590 to 1595

  Her days were ruled by bells and prayers. Margherita rose at dawn, with all the other girls in the long grey dormitory, prayed, dressed, went to chapel, prayed again, sat to learn her letters and numbers with all the other girls in the long grey classroom, prayed again. After a grey lunch, she sat and sewed with all the other girls, prayed again, then was sent to the kitchen to help peel turnips and chop onions. After she ate, she helped scrub pots and wash bowls and mugs in water that was soon as grey as everything else about her. Then she prayed again, and went to bed again.

  So the long grey days passed.

  Margherita tried to escape a few times but was unable to find a way out. High walls enclosed the Ospedale, and the doors were kept securely locked. The windows were all covered with an iron grille, and the girls were marched everywhere in lines of two and never left alone for a moment, not even to go to the toilet. On her second night, Margherita waited till all were asleep and then got up and tiptoed out of the dormitory, but she was found only a few steps down the hallway and taken back to her bed. Another time, she managed to creep away halfway through the church service but could not find her way to the front door. She was found banging hopelessly against a locked side door, and made to do penance and threatened with a whipping if she dared miss church again.

  In all this time, Margherita barely spoke a word to the other girls. She was so hurt and bewildered by her mother’s abandonment of her that she could scarcely bear to look anyone in the eye. Besides, many of the girls had been abandoned because of some deformity or defect – some were lame, or had dreadful pox scars, a few were blind or crippled, and one had a dreadful gaping cleft that ran from her top lip into her nose – and Margherita was frightened by the sight of them. She moved through the long grey hours in a daze, weeping silently to herself and daydreaming that it was all a horrible mistake, and that her parents would soon find her and take her home.

  But nobody came.

  The first gleam of sunshine appeared in her gloomy days as a result of her work in the kitchen. At first, Margherita was set to scrubbing pots in the scullery, but one day the cook called her to come into the kitchen. A kettle sang on the hob, and the air was filled with the delicious scents of bubbling soup and roasting mutton.

  The cook was a round red-faced woman, chopping so fast her knife was practically a blur. A few skinny girls laboured at the spit and the oven, their faces pink and damp with perspiration. Another fat old woman sat on a stool, her legs set wide apart, plucking a dead chicken. She pointed at Margherita with one short chubby finger. ‘Look, it’s another foxy girl.’

  ‘I’m not foxy.’ Margherita had had enough of being called ‘rusty’, and ‘carrots’ and ‘firebox’. Her father had always thought her hair was beautiful, but the other girls at the Pietà said that people with red hair were sly and untrustworthy. One girl said that everyone knew Judas had had red hair, and look what he did to Jesus.

  ‘I like foxes. Foxes smart and pretty.’ Round-faced and round-bodied, the old woman had a flattened nose and sleepy brown eyes with heavy eyelids. Her tongue seemed too large for her mouth, so that she lisped, just like Margherita. ‘They never cut the hair of the foxy girls. I wish they wouldn’t cut my hair. I like long hair.’ She pushed back her white cap to show a straggly grey fringe.

  ‘I like long hair too. My mama had long hair.’

  The old woman’s face mimicked hers, the mouth turning downwards, the bottom lip pouting, the big sad eyes. ‘What’s wrong? You sad?’

  ‘I’ve lost my mama and papa. That bad man took me away.’

  The old woman nodded. ‘Yes. The last foxy girl said that too. A big bad giant and a big bad witch.’

  ‘Yes, that’s who did it.’ Nobody else had believed her. ‘So what happened to the other foxy girls?’

  ‘They went away again.’

  ‘Did their mama and papa come and find them?’

  The old woman shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I don’t think so. They were here for a while, and then they went away again.’

  ‘So how many other foxy girls have there been?’ Margherita asked.

  The old woman put out her fist and slowly released one chubby finger after another, her tongue protruding. She hesitated once all five fingers were splayed and looked at her other hand.

  ‘Petrosinella,’ the cook shouted. ‘You’re not here to gossip. Do you know how to skin and debone salted cod? No? Well, it’s time you learnt.’

  ‘That’s not my name,’ she protested, though in a rather hopeless way. ‘I’m Margherita.’

  ‘Daisy, parsley, what’s the difference?’ the cook said. ‘You can eat them both, if you don’t mind your salads a little bitter. Both good for women’s complaints, if you make a nice tea of them. Now get to work. You too, Dymphna!’

  In bed that night, Margherita thought about the other foxy girls. It was awful to think that the sorceress had brought other red-haired girls here, yet it was also a relief to know that she was not going mad, deluded by fever and sickness, or the devil. Her nightmarish memories of the night she had been taken had been replayed in her mind so often she could no longer be sure it was real. Dymphna’s words offered her a safety-line to cling to. It had happened to her, and it had happened to other girls too.

  That night, Margherita did not curl into a ball and cry herself to sleep. She thought to herself:

  My name is Margherita.

  My parents loved me.

  One day, I will escape from here.

  The next day, she steadfastly faced Suòra Eugenia and told her the same three things. The nun ordered her to be whipped, to drive the demons of deceitfulness from her.

  ‘I’m not lying,’ Margherita shouted. ‘Ask Dymphna, in the kitchens. She knows. There’s been other girls taken as well, red-headed girls like me.’

  ‘Dymphna is feeble-minded,’ Suòra Eugenia said coldly. ‘She has the intelligence of a small child, though she is an old woman now.’

  ‘She remembers them. She says there’s been at least five …’

  ‘Dymphna cannot count, you stupid girl.’

  ‘But she did.’

  ‘Do not argue with me. I understand how difficult it must be for you to accept your mother did not want you, but the sooner you admit it, the sooner you will find peace. Hold out your hand.’

  The words made Margherita start with terror, the day the sorceress bit off the top of her finger still raw in her memory. She put both hands behind her back, shaking her head. Suòra Eugenia yanked out her right hand, although Margherita fought her as hard as she could. Three sharp strokes of the willow switch across the palm of her hand made her scream in shock.

  ‘Never defy me again. And let me hear no more of this nonsense about being stolen. Signorina Leonelli is one of our most generous benefactresses, and without her you’d be begging on the streets.’

  Margherita pushed out her lower lip mutinously but said nothing.

  She took comfort in the faint angelic singing she heard several times a day and in the work and companionship she found in the kitchen. The cook, Christina, was brusque and impatient, but not unkind, often giving Margherita extra titbits of food, and the other girls often chattered and sang as they worked.

  It was Dymphna who became Margherita’s friend, though. Together, they baked clumsy gingerbread men, with big happy smil
es made from raisins. Together, they scrubbed pots, salted sides of pork and churned butter, Dymphna’s burly arms turning the handle while Margherita caught the buttermilk in a jug, then poured in the cold spring water.

  Dymphna found it fascinating that Margherita could curl her tongue. Often, while they peeled vegetables together, Margherita would amuse her by curling it and poking it through the gap in her front teeth. When Dymphna was amused, she would laugh uproariously, her legs apart, hands on her fat knees, her eyes shut. It was absolutely infectious. No one could be around a laughing Dymphna and not laugh too. No one, that is, except Suòra Eugenia, who never smiled at all.

  The kitchen was unbearable in the summer heat, and the cook allowed Dymphna and Margherita and the other kitchen girls, Agnese and Sperenza, to take their tubs of vegetables and their paring knives out into the shaded courtyard, where they sat all in a row on a bench, chatting companionably as they peeled.

  From the floor above came the exquisite sound of singing voices. One day, the song broke off, and a girl’s voice spoke cajolingly, then the song rose again. Kyrie, eleison! Christe, eleison! Kyrie, eleison! Margherita began to hum along, then lifted her voice and joined in. She did not understand the words, but the melody was simple and haunting. Above, the song broke off once more, but Margherita sang on, absorbed in her task and the joy of singing.

  A voice rang out from above: ‘Who’s that singing down there?’

  ‘Petrosinella,’ the other girls cried in reply. Margherita broke off, embarrassed.

  ‘Don’t stop,’ the girl called down. ‘Better still, come up and join us.’

  Margherita looked at the others. Dymphna grinned at her and flapped both hands; Agnese and Sperenza nodded and smiled. ‘Go on, off you go,’ one said.

  Margherita put down her bowl and knife and went slowly up the stairs. A girl, about sixteen years old, waited at the top, holding out one hand and smiling. ‘Were you the little lark? You sing beautifully. Wouldn’t you like to join us?’

  ‘I’m not sure I’m allowed. The turnips—’

  ‘Anyone can peel turnips. Not everyone can sing,’ the girl replied with immense conviction. ‘What was your name? Petrosinella?’

  Margherita gave a little shrug, having given up trying to make anyone call her by her real name.

  ‘I’m Elena. Won’t you sit in for a little while and listen, even if you won’t sing? I’ll make sure you don’t get into trouble.’

  Limping awkwardly, Elena led her into the room where the figlie di coro all stood in rows. Elena had a club foot, Margherita saw, and pity swelled her heart. No doubt that was why she had been abandoned.

  She put Margherita on a stool, and then returned to teaching her class. Margherita watched her with wide eyes. Elena was small and slight, with sherry-brown eyes that lit often with glints of golden amusement. Her white cap was pushed askew, showing a cropped brown head. Her nails were bitten to the quick, bleeding from torn cuticles.

  ‘Alleluia, alleluia,’ the girls in the room sang. Elena made gentle suggestions. ‘Carmela, why don’t you come and stand over here? I think you’re trying to sing too high. Listen to me.’ Elena sang a single long note and Carmela tried to copy her. Elena sang the note again, and once again Carmela copied her, but this time she hit the note correctly, making a beautiful deep rich sound. ‘Perfect,’ Elena said. A little burst of spontaneous applause rang out. Carmela blushed and smiled.

  ‘Imelda and Zita, will you try it a little slower? Let each note hover like a bird, before rising a little higher. You’ll need a big breath. Let’s try it.’ Both girls did their best to sound like Elena did, her voice swooping as effortlessly as a hawk in the sky. ‘Beautiful! Let’s try it once again.’

  ‘Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia,’ the girls sang, their voices soaring and falling. Elena listened, her thin hands making swooping movements, one occasionally lifting higher and higher, the other dropping lower in increments. The sound they produced was so beautiful it pierced Margherita with joy. Tears stung her eyes, yet she wanted to laugh out loud. The same rapture transfigured the faces of the girls singing. Then Elena turned to Margherita and made a little gesture with her hand, and before she knew it Margherita had scrambled to her feet and was singing with all of her heart, ‘Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.’

  Afterwards, Elena motioned for Margherita to stay. ‘You were weeping. Did the music move you so much?’

  ‘Yes, but …’

  ‘But what?’

  ‘It’s because I miss my parents so.’

  Elena nodded. ‘I miss mine too. We all do here. Perhaps that is why we sing so well. There’s shadow as well as sunshine in our voices.’

  Margherita nodded, though she was not sure she fully understood.

  ‘I want you to come and sing with me,’ Elena said. ‘Such a pure sound from such a little body. We don’t have enough sopranos here, especially ones who can sing with such feeling. What do you say? Would you like to learn to sing?’

  ‘Si,’ Margherita answered shyly, and blushed to hear herself lisp.

  Elena smiled. ‘Don’t worry, your front teeth will grow in all too soon. It’s a shame. You’re so sweet without them. Will you come to me then, tomorrow, at this time? You get to miss prayers.’

  Margherita nodded, and she ran to join Dymphna downstairs. In her head, she heard the music ring out once more and sang silently to herself, Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.

  On Margherita’s twelfth birthday, she and her friends gathered in the warmth of the kitchen to share a cinnamon cake that Dymphna had made with her own hands. It was rather lopsided, and burnt along one edge, but nobody minded that.

  ‘I love it when Easter is early.’ Margherita licked the delicious crumbs from about her mouth. ‘It’s awful when my birthday is in the middle of Lent.’

  ‘You’re lucky you know your birthday. Most of us don’t.’ There was no resentment in Elena’s voice. She believed it was no use weeping over the past, and, besides, all the girls at the Pietà had been abandoned by their mothers. Many suffered more debilitating deformities than her club foot.

  ‘I wish I knew my birthday,’ Dymphna said with uncharacteristic wistfulness.

  ‘You can share mine,’ Margherita said. Dymphna’s round face creased with pleasure.

  ‘I wish we could give you a birthday gift,’ Elena said. ‘If I had a fortune, I’d give you your own lute.’

  ‘I’d have liked that.’ The lute was Margherita’s favourite instrument – able to weep or be joyful, to be played alone or with other instruments, to be high and sweet, or low and intense.

  ‘I’d give you a week off scrubbing pots,’ said Sperenza. ‘Not a week, a month. A whole month without a single pot.’

  ‘As long as I didn’t have to do it instead,’ said Agnese, the other kitchen maid.

  ‘I’d give you a different-coloured dress to wear,’ Carmela said. A sensitive girl with a gorgeous contralto voice, she longed for beauty and harmony. ‘I’d dress you in green, or lilac, or turquoise-blue. Or even grey. Anything but bright red.’

  Margherita smiled, but for a moment she felt an inexplicable stab of pain. She remembered a green dress, with a sash the same colour as her hair …

  ‘That’s not a present for Margherita, that’s a present for you,’ Zita teased. ‘I’d give you a day out on the lagoon on a barge, with a feast and music and dancing. But only if you took all of us with you.’

  ‘At Carnevale time,’ Margherita said. ‘We could see the fire-eaters and the acrobats and the jesters, and the crowds all dressed up in masks.’

  Everyone sighed with longing. It was hard being kept inside four high grey walls all the time.

  ‘I’d give you a horse,’ Agnese said. ‘A white one, with a silver bridle, like the one in the tapestry in the refectory. Wouldn’t you just love to ride through a forest on a horse like that?’

  ‘I’d give you a camel,’ Dymphna said.

  Everyone fell about laughing. Dymphna laughed too, her mouth wide open
, her eyes crinkled into slits.

  ‘But why?’ Elena demanded.

  ‘I’ve always wanted to see one,’ Dymphna said. ‘I’ve heard stories about them. You can ride them over the desert and drink their milk and not get thirsty, even if there’s no water for miles. And I saw a carving of one once, and it looked a most incredible beast.’

  ‘I’d like to see a camel too,’ Margherita said. ‘And lions and elephants and monkeys.’

  ‘Me too,’ Dymphna said happily.

  ‘I’d like to travel the world,’ Margherita said. ‘There’s so much I’d like to see. Mountains that touch the sky and oceans that pour over the edge of the world.’

  ‘I’d like to travel the world too,’ Elena said, ‘and sing at the courts of kings and queens, and wear gowns of silk and velvet, with ropes of pearls in my hair.’ Her sherry-brown eyes glowed at the vision of herself she saw.

  ‘We can’t,’ Carmela said. ‘We’re not permitted to sing in public. Not even once we leave here.’

  ‘If we ever leave here,’ Elena said, all her animation quenched. She was now twenty, and there seemed little possibility of her finding a husband or a position in a private household. She would have to stay at the Pietà till she died.

  There was a long moment of silence, then Sperenza stood up and began to clear away their cups and plates. ‘I’d better wash these up before Christina wakes up from her nap.’ Agnese got up, rolling up her sleeves and going to the pump to draw some water. Margherita jumped up too, but Sperenza shook her head. ‘No, let us do it. It’s the only gift we can give you.’

  ‘But it doesn’t seem fair. I mean, you don’t know your birthday …’

  ‘You can do all the washing up for us at Christmas,’ Sperenza said, with a return of her usual sparkling humour.