by Kai Meyer
“Eft,” the woman said, and then, with a barely noticeable lisp, “that’s my name.”
“Merle. And this is Junipa. We’re the new apprentices.”
“Of course, who else?” Only Eft’s eyes betrayed that she was smiling. Merle wondered whether the woman’s face could have been disfigured by illness.
Eft ushered the girls in. Beyond the door was a broad entrance hall, as in most of the houses of the city. It was only sparely furnished, the walls plastered and without hangings—precautions against the high waters that struck Venice some winters. The domestic life of the Venetians took place on the second and third floors, the ground floors being left bare and uncomfortable.
“It’s late,” said Eft, as if her eye had happened to fall on a clock. But Merle couldn’t discover one anywhere. “Arcimboldo and the older students are in the workshop at this hour and may not be disturbed. You’ll get to meet them in the morning. I’ll show you to your room.”
Merle couldn’t repress a smile. She had hoped that she and Junipa would share a room. She saw that the blind girl was also happy to hear Eft’s words.
The masked woman led them up the steps of a curving flight of stairs. “I’m the housekeeper for the workshop. I’ll be cooking for you and washing your things. Perhaps in the first few months you’ll be giving me a hand with it; the master often requests that of newcomers—especially as you are the only girls in the house.”
The only girls? That all the other apprentices could be boys hadn’t occurred to Merle at all until now. She was all the more relieved that she was beginning her apprenticeship with Junipa.
The blind girl wasn’t very talkative, and Merle guessed that she hadn’t had a very easy time of it in the orphanage. Merle had only too often experienced how awful children can be, especially to those they consider weaker. Certainly Junipa’s blindness would frequently have been a reason for mean tricks.
The girls followed Eft down a long hallway. The walls were hung with countless mirrors. Most were aimed toward each other: mirrors in mirrors in mirrors. Merle doubted that any of these were Arcimboldo’s famous magic mirrors, for she could discover nothing unusual about them.
After Eft had explained all the rules about eating times, going out, and behavior in the house, Merle asked, “Who buys Arcimboldo’s magic mirrors, anyhow?”
“You’re curious,” stated Eft, leaving it open as to whether this displeased her.
“Rich people?” Junipa queried, absently running her hand over her smooth hair.
“Perhaps,” Eft replied. “Who knows?” With that she let the subject drop, and the girls probed no further. They would have time enough to find out everything important about the workshop and its customers. Good and wicked stepmothers, Merle repeated to herself. Beautiful and ugly witches. That sounded exciting.
The room that Eft showed them to was not large. It smelled musty, but since it was on the fourth floor of the building, it was pleasingly bright. In Venice you saw daylight only above the third floor, to say nothing of the sunshine, if you were lucky. However, the window of this room looked out over a sea of orange tiles. At night they would be able to see the starry heavens, and all day they would be able to see the sun—provided their work left them time for it.
The room was at the back of the house. Far below the window, Merle could make out a small courtyard with a round well in the center. All the houses opposite appeared to be empty. At the beginning of the war with the Pharaoh’s kingdom, many Venetians had left the city and fled to the mainland—a disastrous mistake, as it later turned out.
Eft left the girls, telling them she would bring them something to eat in an hour. And then after that they should go to bed, so that they would be rested for their first workday.
Junipa felt along the bedposts and gently let herself down on the mattress. Carefully she stroked the bedcover with both hands.
“Look at the blankets! So fluffy!”
Merle sat down beside her. “They must have been expensive,” she said dreamily. In the orphanage the blankets had been thin and scratchy, and there were all kinds of bugs that bit your skin while you were asleep.
“It looks as though we’ve been lucky,” Junipa said.
“We still haven’t met Arcimboldo.”
Junipa raised an eyebrow. “Anyone who takes a blind girl from an orphanage to teach her something can’t be a bad man.”
Merle remained skeptical. “Arcimboldo is known for that—taking orphans as pupils. Anyway, what parents would send their child to apprentice in a place that calls itself the Canal of the Expelled?”
“But I can’t see, Merle! I’ve been nothing but a millstone around people’s necks all my life.”
“Did they make you think that at the home?” Merle gave Junipa a searching look. Then she took her narrow white hand. “Anyhow, I’m glad you’re here.”
Junipa smiled in embarrassment. “My parents abandoned me when I was just a year old. They left a note in my clothes. They said that they didn’t want to raise a cripple.”
“That’s horrible.”
“How did you land in the home?”
Merle sighed. “An attendant in the orphanage once told me that they found me in a wicker basket floating on the Grand Canal.” She shrugged her shoulders. “Sounds like a fairy tale, huh?”
“A sad one.”
“I was only a few days old.”
“Who would throw a child into the canal?”
“And who would abandon one because it couldn’t see?”
They smiled at each other. Even though Junipa’s blank eyes looked right through her, Merle still had the feeling that her glances were more than an empty gesture. Through hearing and touching Junipa probably perceived more than most other people.
“Your parents didn’t want you to drown,” Junipa declared. “Otherwise they wouldn’t have taken the trouble to lay you in a wicker basket.”
Merle looked at the floor. “They put something else in the basket. Would you like to—” She stopped.
“—see it?” Grinning, Junipa finished the sentence.
“I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have to be. I can still touch it. Do you have it with you?”
“Always, no matter where I go. Once, in the orphanage, a girl tried to steal it. I pulled all her hair out almost.” She laughed a little shamefacedly. “Oh, well, I was only eight then.”
Junipa laughed too. “Then I’d better put mine up in a knot for the night.”
Merle touched Junipa’s hair gently. It was thick and as light as a snow queen’s.
“Well, so?” Junipa asked. “What else was in your wicker basket?”
Merle stood up, opened her bundle, and pulled out her most prized possession—to be precise, it was her only one, besides her sweater and the simple patched dress she had for a change of clothes.
It was a hand mirror, about as large as her face, oval and with a short handle. The frame was made of a dark metal alloy, which so many in the orphanage had greedily eyed as tarnished gold. In truth, however, it was not gold and also not any other metal anyone had ever heard of, for it was as hard as diamond.
But the most unusual thing about this mirror was its reflective surface. It wasn’t made of glass, but of water. You could reach into it and make little waves, yet never a drop fell out, even when you turned the mirror.
Merle placed the handle in Junipa’s open hand and carefully closed the blind girl’s fingers around it. Instead of feeling the object, she first put it to her ear.
“It’s whispering,” she said softly.
Merle was surprised. “Whispering? I’ve never heard anything.”
“You aren’t blind, either.” A small, vertical furrow had appeared in Junipa’s forehead. She was concentrating. “There are several voices. I can’t understand the words, there are too many voices, and they’re too far away. But they’re whispering with each other.” Junipa lowered the mirror and ran the fingers of her left hand around the oval frame. “Is i
t a picture?” she asked.
“A mirror,” Merle replied. “But—don’t be scared—it’s made of water.”
Junipa betrayed no sign of astonishment, as if this were something entirely ordinary. Only, when she stretched out a fingertip and touched the water surface, she flinched. “It’s cold,” she said.
Merle shook her head. “No, not at all. The water in the mirror is always warm. And you can put something in it, but when you pull it out again, it’s dry.”
Junipa touched the water once more. “To me it feels ice-cold.”
Merle took the mirror out of her hand and stuck her index and middle fingers in. “Warm,” she said again, now almost a little defiantly. “It’s never been cold, as long as I can remember.”
“Has anyone else ever touched it? I mean, except you.”
“Nobody so far. Just once, I gave permission to a nun who came to visit us in the orphanage, but she was terribly afraid of it and said it was a work of the Devil.”
Junipa pondered. “Maybe the water feels cold to anyone else except the owner.”
Merle frowned. “That could be.” She looked at the surface, which was always slightly in motion. Distorted and quivering, her reflection looked back.
“Are you planning to show it to Arcimboldo?” Junipa asked. “After all, he knows all about magic mirrors.”
“I don’t think so. At least not right away. Maybe later sometime.”
“You’re afraid he might take it away from you.”
“Wouldn’t you be?” Merle sighed. “It’s the only thing that I have left of my parents.”
“You are a part of your parents, don’t forget.”
Merle was quiet for a moment. She considered whether she could trust Junipa, whether she should tell the blind girl the whole truth. Finally, after a cautious glance toward the door, she whispered, “The water isn’t everything.”
“What do you mean?”
“I can stick my whole arm into the mirror and it doesn’t come out on the other side.” In fact, the back side of the oval was of the same hard metal as the frame.
“Will you do it now?” asked Junipa in astonishment. “I mean, right now this minute?”
“If you want.” First Merle let her fingers slide into the interior of the water mirror, then her hand, finally her entire arm. It was as if it had vanished completely from this world.
Junipa reached out her hand and felt from Merle’s shoulder to the rim of the mirror. “How does it feel?”
“Very warm,” Merle reported. “Comfortable, but not hot.” She lowered her voice. “And sometimes I feel something else.”
“What?”
“A hand.”
“A . . . hand?”
“Yes. It grasps mine, very gently, and holds it.”
“It holds you fast?”
“Not fast. Just . . . oh, well, it just holds my hand. The way friends do. Or—”
“Or parents?” Junipa was looking at her intently. “Do you believe that your father or your mother is in there holding your hand?”
It was uncomfortable for Merle to speak about it. Nevertheless, she felt that she could trust Junipa. After a brief hesitation, she overcame her shyness. “It could be possible, couldn’t it? After all, they were the ones who put the mirror in the basket with me. Maybe they did it to stay in contact with me, so that I’d know that they are still . . . somewhere.”
Junipa nodded slowly, but she didn’t appear to be completely convinced. Rather, understanding. A little sadly she said, “For a long time I imagined that my father was a gondolier. I know that the gondoliers are the handsomest men in Venice. I mean, everyone knows that . . . even if I can’t see them.”
“They aren’t all handsome,” Merle objected.
Junipa’s voice sounded dreamy. “And I imagined for myself that my mother was a water carrier from the mainland.”
People said that the water carrier women who sold drinking water on the streets from huge pitchers were the most attractive women far and wide. And as in the case of the gondoliers, this story did possess a kernel of truth.
Junipa went on, “So I used to imagine that my parents were both these two very beautiful people, as if that would say something about me. About my true self. I even tried to excuse them. Two such perfect creatures, I said to myself, couldn’t see themselves with a sick child. I talked myself into thinking it was their right to abandon me.” Suddenly she shook her head so hard that her pale blond hair flew wildly around her. “Today I know that’s all nonsense. Perhaps my parents are good looking or perhaps they’re ugly. Perhaps they aren’t even alive anymore. But that has nothing to do with me, you understand? I’m me, that’s the only thing that counts. And my parents did wrong because they simply threw a helpless child out onto the streets.”
Merle had listened, perplexed. She knew what Junipa meant, even if she didn’t understand what that had to do with her and the hand in her mirror.
“You mustn’t fool yourself, Merle,” said the blind girl, and she sounded much wiser than her years. “Your parents didn’t want you. Therefore they put you in that wicker basket. And so if someone is reaching out a hand to you in your mirror, it doesn’t necessarily have to be your father or your mother. That thing you are feeling is magic, Merle. And with magic you have to be careful.”
For a moment Merle felt anger rising in her. Wounded, she told herself that Junipa had no right to say such a thing, to rob her of her hopes, all the dreams she had when the other person in the mirror held her hand. But then she understood that Junipa was only being honest and that honesty is the most beautiful gift that a person can give to another at the beginning of a friendship.
Merle shoved the mirror under her pillow. She knew that it wouldn’t break and that she could press the pillow as hard as she wanted onto the surface of the water without it becoming wet or sucking up the liquid. Then she sat back down next to Junipa and put her arm around her. The blind girl returned the hug and so they held each other like sisters, like two people who have no secrets from each other. It was such an overpowering feeling of closeness and mutual understanding that for a while it even surpassed the warmth of the hand in the mirror and its calm and strength, with which it had won Merle’s trust.
When the girls released each other, Merle said, “You can try it sometime, if you want.”
“The mirror?” Junipa shook her head. “It’s yours. If it wanted me to put my hand in, the water would have been warm for me.”
Merle felt that Junipa was right. Whether it was the hand of one of her parents that touched hers inside there or the fingers of something entirely different, it was clear that they accepted only Merle. It might even be dangerous if another person pushed so deeply into the space behind the mirror.
The girls were sitting there together on the bed when the door opened and Eft came in. She was bearing the evening meal on a wooden tray, substantial soup with vegetables and basil, along with some white bread and a pitcher of water from the well in the courtyard.
“Go to sleep when you’ve unpacked,” lisped the woman behind the mask as she left the room. “You’ll have all the time in the world to talk with each other.”
Had Eft been eavesdropping? Did she know of the mirror under Merle’s pillow? But, Merle told herself, she had no reason to mistrust the housekeeper. Eft had so far been very friendly and welcoming. The mere fact that she hid the lower part of her face behind a mask didn’t make her an evil person.
She was thinking again about Eft’s mask as she began to fall asleep, and half-asleep she wondered whether everyone didn’t wear a mask sometimes.
A mask of joy, a mask of sorrow, a mask of indifference.
A mask of you-can’t-see-me.
2
IN A DREAM MERLE MET THE FLOWING QUEEN.
It seemed as if she were riding through the waters of the lagoon on a being of soft glass. Green and blue phantoms beat against them, millions of drops, as warm as the water inside her mirror. They caressed her cheeks, he
r neck, the palms of her open hands as she held them against the current. She felt that she was one with the Flowing Queen, a creature as unfathomable as the sunrise, as the power of thunder and lightning and the storm, as incomprehensible as life and death. They dove down under the surface, but Merle had no trouble breathing, for the Queen was in her and kept her alive, as if they were two parts of one body.
Swarms of shimmering fish traveled along beside them, accompanying them on their journey, whose destination became less and less important to Merle. It was the journey alone that mattered, the oneness with the Flowing Queen, the feeling of comprehending the lagoon and sharing in its beauty.
And although nothing else happened, other than her gliding along with the Flowing Queen, it was a dream more marvelous than any Merle had dreamed for months, for years. In the orphanage her nights had consisted of cold, the bite of the fleas, and the fear of theft. But here, in the house of Arcimboldo, she was finally safe.
Merle awoke. In the first moment she thought that a sound had snatched her from sleep. But there was nothing. Complete silence.
The Flowing Queen. Everyone had heard of her. And yet no one knew what she really was. When the galleys of the Egyptians had tried to enter the Venetian lagoon, after their campaigns of extermination all over the world, something unusual had happened. Something wonderful. The Flowing Queen had put them to flight. The Egyptian Empire, the greatest and most horrific power in the history of the world, had had to withdraw with its tail between its legs.
Since then, the legends had twined about the Flowing Queen.
It was certain she was not a creature of flesh and blood. She was in and throughout the waters of the lagoon, the narrow canals of the city, as well as the broad expanses of water between the islands. The city councillors maintained that they had regular conversations with her and acted according to her wishes. If in fact she had ever begun to speak, however, it was never in the presence of the simple folk.
