Dark Shimmer

by Donna Jo Napoli

  She tries to picture the whole scene again. The boar came from Pietro’s left…didn’t it? So that means she ran toward the right. So if she turns right again, she should wind up out on the lagoon. It’s as good a plan as any.

  Bianca turns right, or she thinks she does. It’s hard to be sure which direction she came from. She was just trying to get away.

  Well, she’s going somewhere else. And somewhere else will be at least as good as here, because here is completely lost. She can’t do worse. She walks quietly. Pietro might be dead. She’d be sorry if he was dead. He wasn’t mean to her. He must be a demented soul to have taken her like that, but he didn’t mistreat her. If he was dead, then God rest his soul. But if he was alive, he could be following her.

  What about those dogs? She walks faster. There hadn’t been a hunter with the dogs, but maybe he was far behind. If there was a hunter, he’d help her. That means she should head toward the dogs, not away. If there was a hunter.

  Too many possibilities. She’s chosen this direction. Straight. Find the lagoon. A hunter could be anywhere by now. The lagoon doesn’t move. That makes her plan sensible.

  She marches. She lost her cloak when she ran, and now that she’s going slowly, the cold strangles her. She coughs. Then she stuffs a hand in her mouth. Quiet.

  Nothing but trees. She can’t smell the lagoon. She can’t see it or hear it.

  Her mind keeps going backward. She remembers a bullbaiting, ten months ago, at the feast of Santo Stefano. Men held on to the bull with ropes, and dogs barked at him and bit into his tail and thighs until he went crazy and reared up. Bianca had buried her head in Mamma’s shoulder. The crowd cheered and screamed. When Bianca looked again, the bull was on his knees, lowing, bleeding.

  An innocent beast. All beasts are innocent.

  Bianca is innocent too. What has she ever done?

  She’s been walking a long time. Hunger gnaws at her. Exhaustion weighs her down. And the air itself is wet; it chills her even more. A tear rolls into her mouth. Could a person get lost in the woods forever?

  She stops. She should have arrived at the lagoon hours ago. She looks around for a tree to climb to spot the water. The oaks go up too high before they branch. The beech are the same. Pines offer no strong branches; besides, the needles would poke her eyes out. She turns in circles. Please. Let there be something. Please.

  There! The dark green leaves are unmistakable. The laurel is bigger than any she’s ever seen before. The answer to her prayer. She should have prayed earlier.

  Is there a trick to climbing? When Papà would take her on a forest walk, he’d teach her how to identify the trees, but he wouldn’t let her climb them. Papà has his limitations. But Bianca will not be limited.

  It’s not hard, really; the worst of it is how the rough spots dig into her hands. Her skin must be brittle from the cold. In minutes, she’s up as high as she can go; the branches got slender fast. And she’s not that high, after all; her hopeful eyes played tricks on her. She clings to the trunk and looks in every direction, but the thick leaves don’t provide a clear view. The branch cracks under her. She slips to the next one down, scraping her face on the trunk, then climbs to the ground. She puts a laurel leaf in her mouth and chomps on it; her hands curl into fists.

  She saw it. Not the lagoon. A thatched roof. A house. She sets out for it.

  The noise of dogs comes from ahead. The dogs that chased the boar? She stops and listens hard. Barks, bays, yips. Many kinds of dogs.

  That’s what Pietro said. He said to listen for the dogs and head that way. Oh! These are his friends who train dogs. Of course, of course. Well, they can’t be awful then. They’re businesspeople. Businesspeople can’t be maniacs hidden away in a forest. They have to be reasonable. Bianca is nobility. There’s something to be gained by treating her well. They could even get new customers if they treated her right.

  She walks on. The house appears. No dogs. No people.

  She’s never seen a dwelling so low. The front door reaches only to her chin.

  There’s no knocker. Somehow that makes her feel sad. She calls out; no answer. The latch lifts easily. She ducks down and walks inside. The roof beams are high enough for her to stand. At one end of the single large room is a hearth with a table and stools. Seven of them. All small, as though made for children. The table is also low. Against a wall are seven beds. Short. At the foot of each is a chest. Bianca turns and studies the door.

  Pietro’s friends are dwarfs, like him.

  The embers in the hearth still glow. Pietro promised her that these people would take care of her, so they won’t mind if Bianca does what she needs to do. She’s helped Carlo light fires all her life. She takes several sticks from the pile of kindling. Her arms shake. Her teeth chatter. But she gets a fire going till the flames lick high. She puts on two pine logs. They hiss and sizzle. The smell intoxicates her. She takes off her boots, pulls one of the stools close to the fire and sits on it, then rubs her icy feet. Won’t Pietro’s friends please come now?

  Once Bianca has thawed out, she looks around. On a shelf she sees the heel of a loaf of bread, a flask of black wine, a basket of roasted chestnuts, and a bowl of truffles still coated in dirt. She’s famished; they’ll understand. Besides, Papà will pay them back handsomely. She pours wine into a mug. She heats the bread and chestnuts in an iron pan over the fire, then slides them into a bowl. Her teeth sink into the soft, sweet flesh of the chestnuts. She rips off a hunk of bread and dips it in the wine and chews. The wine runs across her tongue, around the sides. Who knew such coarse bread in such young wine in a cracked mug could be so delicious?

  The wine has gone to her head. She should have mixed it with water, but she didn’t see any. She falls back onto the bed closest to the fire. The bottom edge hits her calf midway.

  She looks at the dark wooden beams above and her mind can no longer hold back the image of Mamma. Dolce. Pietro said he stole her because of Mamma. He said Mamma wanted her dead.

  Mamma gave her a small mirror and a pill. Bianca remembers the bitter taste. Her tongue still tingles slightly. She remembers Mamma talking about the heavens. Then memory ends.

  Mamma drugged her.

  The mamma Bianca loves, the one she needs so very much, that mamma drugged her.

  Bianca covers her face with her hands. She rolls onto her side and curves into the shape of the Canal Grande. She fits now. She’s warm and cozy. The fire crackles and spits. That’s what matters—that fire, this bed, her full belly. If she can just empty her mind, she can manage not to scream. She can’t see with her hands covering her face, but she closes her eyes anyway.

  It’s midmorning by the time Pietro makes it back to the Contarini palace. He ties his boat up at the dock under the pian nobile and then lies on his stomach on the fondamenta and washes his face in the canal. He can’t free himself of the feeling that he’s spattered with blood. He rubs and rubs. He splashes his hair. He even rinses his mouth with the dirty water.

  He stands and rushes into a storeroom. He grabs a piece of cloth from the pile that the servants use for cleaning, wraps the liver and lungs in it, and holds the cloth package at arm’s distance. Rid himself of them—get it over with.

  As he comes out of the storeroom, Signora Contarini is standing there. Her face curious, her little dog in her arms. What could he have expected? There are servants, spies.

  “Come upstairs, please.”

  “Please excuse me, most dignified signora. An urgent task calls me away. I’ll return quickly.”

  “I don’t excuse you. Follow me.”

  The signora leads Pietro up the stairs. The Contarini women are gathered at the top, eyes wide, faces eager. They all hold lapdogs. Pietro supplied them. The women jostle each other like hungry dogs themselves, vying for the first piece of flesh.

  “You’ve been out all night,” says Signora Contarini.

  “You know I have business elsewhere.” Pietro looks meaningfully across the dogs.

  �
��Indeed, I do. We have always taken pride in your business endeavors. But tell me, Pietro, is it business that makes you leave in the middle of the night and return without a dog in your boat and in shabby clothes, all roughed up?” She shakes her head. “You look a fright. Speak plainly.”

  Speak? This business is unspeakable.

  “What’s in the package?” asks a girl. “Birba wants to know. She’s practically jumping out of my arms.”

  Birba barks.

  Now all the dogs bark.

  An idiotic household. Pietro has never understood why the girls take delight in having trained their dogs to bark at the same time.

  “I insist you open it,” says the signora.

  The women seem to move toward him just the smallest bit. They have a nose for gossip, all of them. It’s as though they can smell it on him.

  “It would be best to hold the dogs tightly,” says Pietro. He goes to a side table, unties the string, and unfolds the cloth. He stands aside so the women can look.

  “Liver…lungs…? Have you been to the butcher’s?”

  “My friend killed a boar.”

  “And you must have helped him, by the looks of you.”

  Pietro nods.

  “Where are you taking this?”

  From nowhere comes the right answer: “It’s a delicate matter.”

  The signora frowns. Had they been alone, she would have pursued it. But now, it would be undignified. Respect for delicate matters is a mark of nobility.

  Pietro folds up the package, bows, and leaves. He runs now, turns into another alley, runs to the end, and turns again. If the signora sent anyone to follow, Pietro has surely lost him. But if that servant should ask shopkeepers or even shoppers which way a dwarf has gone, many voices will answer. Pietro is used to eyes following him.

  He gets to a campo and runs down one alley, then back to the campo and down a different alley, then back to the campo and down a third alley, and this time he keeps going. It’s the best he can do.

  He runs straight to the iron gate, clanks the bell. He looks over his shoulder. No one has followed. He clanks again and again.

  Antonin arrives at last.

  “Please,” says Pietro through the gate. “I’ve brought something for the mistress.”

  Antonin reaches through the bars.

  “I need to give it to her myself,” says Pietro. “Besides, it can’t fit through the bars.”

  Antonin paces. He shakes his head. “Something has happened. The physician says it’s not advisable to let her have visitors.”

  “Would you just ask her? Please. If she doesn’t want to see me, I’ll leave. But I am sure that she will want to see me.”

  “You don’t understand,” says Antonin. “It’s a disaster.”

  “I do understand.”

  Antonin looks shocked. “How could you? No one…” Then his face changes. “So…you’ve already talked with someone.”

  The man thinks he’s being a model of discretion. Pietro wonders if everyone in this palace knows about him and Agnola, if everyone everywhere knows. For a second Pietro hates Venezia. He nods solemnly.

  Antonin opens the gate so Pietro can enter. “Please wait here.” He goes up the stairs.

  Pietro looks down at Alvise’s boots. They are scuffed and dirty. Pietro needs to clean up properly as soon as he gets home, as soon as he puts this behind him.

  This disaster. The girl disappeared.

  Alvise will find her, though. He’s found her already, he must have. Her cloak was lying in the brush. All he had to do was hold it to a dog’s nose and they’d track her down.

  Is that true?

  Well, somehow Alvise will find the girl. Or all his friends together will find her. No dwarfs who make a living off their own business can be dunces. To the contrary, they are geniuses.

  They must find her and treat her well. It must not be that Pietro did a terrible thing. It absolutely must not be. In fact, he has done a good thing. He saved Bianca’s life. Anyone else probably would have just done what The Wicked One demanded.

  “You may come up.”

  Pietro follows Antonin up the stairs. That’s another thing he hates about Venezia, all the stairs. They’re too high going up, too low going down. Pietro’s sick of living in a world made for others.

  He’s shown into the music room and told to sit. He hates to sit in those high chairs, with his legs dangling. Big people tend to smile when they see him like that, as though he’s cute, like a child. But Antonin waits, so Pietro finally takes a seat. Antonin closes the door behind him. Pietro can’t hear what’s happening outside.

  Agnola comes in. She leaves the door open. She stands by the harp, one hand on it as though for support. Her face is ghastly, ravaged by sorrow.

  Pietro jumps to his feet. He longs to hug her. He sets the package on the chair and turns to her.

  Agnola lifts a hand to her mouth, then chews on her knuckle. “Something awful has happened.”

  Pietro doesn’t want to lie. It’s not in his nature, and he should never have to lie to the woman he loves. This is another reason to hate The Wicked One. The Wicked One has reduced him, diminished his humanity, soiled the dignity he has given up so much to attain. He stands silent and helpless in front of Agnola.

  “Bianca is gone, and Dolce is nearly dead.”

  Pietro jerks to attention. “Nearly dead?”

  “She jumped into the water. She tried to save Bianca.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I know,” says Agnola. “It doesn’t make sense.”

  “Tell me what happened.”

  “They were asleep at the convent. Dolce woke. Bianca’s bed was empty. She looked everywhere for her. Then she searched outside. Bianca was standing on the fondamenta. She looked back at Dolce and jumped in.”

  “Bianca jumped into the water?”

  “Yes. Jumped. Dolce thinks Bianca did it on purpose. Dolce ran and jumped in after her. She knows how to swim. Bianca doesn’t. Bianca had already disappeared, though. She was wearing all her clothes, dress and cloak and everything. She sank instantly. Even Dolce would have sunk if she’d been wearing all that weight. Thank the Lord she only had her shift on.”

  “How…how do you know all this? If the signora had been in the water, she couldn’t have gotten out. She…”

  “She made it to a side canal and someone pulled her out. She was half frozen. They brought her home. Raving.”

  “Stark raving mad.”

  Agnola tilts her head and tears well in her eyes. “I should be, too. We all should be. We’ll never feel whole again. Bianca’s lost.”

  “Bianca’s not lost.”

  Agnola shakes her head slowly. “If she jumped, it’s suicide. Her soul is condemned to hell.”

  “Bianca would never commit suicide.”

  Agnola looks at him with wide eyes. “Thank you for saying that. You can’t know her very well, but what you say feels so right. Bianca never would have given up.”

  If only he could hold Agnola. He’s tempted to shut the door, but she’s already distraught. “The girl did not give up.”

  Agnola takes a deep breath. “I wish Dolce believed that. If she doesn’t, we won’t be able to bury the body in the family crypt. We can’t even have a funeral.”

  “They found a body?”

  “They’re looking. It will show up.”

  “It will not show up. She’s not dead, Agnola.”

  “Oh, Pietro, she has to be. If…no, there’s no ‘if’…the water is so cold, her clothes are so heavy, she can’t swim….She’s gone.” Agnola’s voice cracks. She weeps.

  Pietro takes the package off the chair and sets it on the floor. He guides Agnola by the elbow to the chair. She sits, slumped, heaving. He wraps his arms around her. The damn door is still open, but he has to hold her, she’s in such pain. “Bianca is alive,” he says very quietly. “Believe me.”

  “How? How can I believe that?”

  “You’ll see. They won
’t find a body. It will be as though she’s disappeared. But she’s alive. Don’t tell anyone. Just know it in your heart.”

  Agnola nestles against his chest. “I can try.”

  “I’ll help you.”

  Someone clears their throat right outside the door. Pietro moves away from Agnola and picks up the package. A moment later Antonin appears in the doorway. The man is kind. Pietro feels enormous gratitude. The Wicked One is an aberration in this decent household.

  “The mistress will see you now. In the library.”

  The Wicked One sits in a chair with a blanket across her lap and legs. She’s wearing a black dress, with white crepe at the collar and cuffs. Her face is ravaged like Agnola’s. What a good actress.

  The Wicked One holds her hands, palms up, in front of her chest. She stares at them. “Leave us, Antonin.”

  “The physician said—”

  “Just for a little while. You can help me back to bed soon. Go. And shut the door.”

  Antonin leaves.

  The Wicked One looks from her hands to Pietro. She seems bewildered. “What have you to say for yourself?”

  This is not the question Pietro expected. And her manner is not at all what he expected. Pietro works to keep his face blank. He hands her the package.

  “Liver and lungs?” she whispers.

  He nods.

  “I’ll have Lucia La Rotonda boil them with salt.”

  Pietro’s nostrils flare in revulsion. She’ll eat them? He thought they were simply proof.

  She hugs the package to her chest. “This will fix it all. Then life can go right.”

  Pietro stares at her.

  “You weren’t meant to be the fairest,” she croons to the package. “And you certainly weren’t meant to rob me of a loving mother. So now it’s fixed.” She looks up at Pietro. “Thank you.” She seems earnest. And frail.

  Bianca said her mother wasn’t well; maybe she’s right. Maybe The Wicked One has lost her senses. “This is the end of my obligation,” says Pietro. “You will leave Agnola and me in peace.”

  The Wicked One looks at him; then her eyes slide away.