Dark Shimmer

by Donna Jo Napoli

  Sebastiano’s heart leaps. He looks at Ricci. “Good Lord, man, you’re right; I’m completely smitten. What kind of fool am I? But I am convinced, totally and utterly, that this girl should have been the one I married and built a family with and grew old with. I feel I’ve lost everything.” Tears run down his cheeks. He’s a blubbering idiot. He puts both hands on the coffin lid and leans till his face is just inches from the girl’s. “I would have cherished you all my life.”

  “Listen,” says Giordano in a thick voice. “Maybe the signore is right. Maybe Neve should be moved closer to the cabin.”

  “She liked the hens,” says the mustached man. “We could place her near the coop.”

  Alvise and Ricci take one end of the coffin. Sebastiano and Pietro take the other. The five other men walk beside them. Sebastiano can’t take his eyes from the girl’s face. What? Did her eyelids quiver? Stunned, he drops his corner of the coffin.

  But the glass doesn’t break. Thank the Lord.

  Alvise and Ricci and Pietro put down their corners. Everyone stares.

  The girl’s eyes are open. Her mouth is open. She pushes up against the glass with her hands.

  The men are already lifting the lid.

  The girl sits up and runs both hands along the rim of the coffin slowly, slowly. Her eyes register horror. She hugs her chest and shivers. She twists so she can look from one face to the next, as though she’s making an inventory. Finally, she looks at Sebastiano. “Sebastiano? Is that you?”

  “I love your voice.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I came to be your husband, if you’ll have me.”

  “Do you have any idea of…Are you mad?”

  “You make me feel like the world is exciting. And we agree: dog breath stinks.”

  “Good Lord, you are mad.”

  “Perhaps. We can figure it out together.”

  Pietro stands beneath the high table in the Contarini family’s palace. The cloth covering it hangs so low that the tassels at the four corners touch the floor. It’s perfect. No one can tell he’s there and he can still see the tips of the ladies’ shoes as they come close to lean over the map spread out on the table. He will recognize Agnola’s shoes. She must not wear new ones. Please. This has to work.

  The voices are noisy. Women at these parties have a habit of talking over each other, multiple conversations going on, people participating in more than one at the same time. Such confusion has never bothered Pietro before, but it’s hard on him now, as he strains to pick out Agnola’s voice. Where is she?

  The women sound happy and not at all interested in the map, really. Map rooms like this one are for the men, not the women. But Signora Contarini is proud of her husband’s new acquisition, so she’s invited her afternoon party to crowd into the room and exclaim over it. They understand; each woman dutifully says it’s marvelous, sometimes speaking even as they step to the table, before they’ve had a chance to look at it.

  Agnola must be here. He knows she was invited. Pietro studies the shoe tips.

  At last. He closes his hand around her ankle, firmly. He doesn’t dare move his hand upward; he doesn’t dare even linger. But, oh, good God, how he wants to. He snatches his hand back under the cloth.

  No sound from above. Agnola doesn’t speak. He couldn’t have mistaken her shoe. And even if he had, he couldn’t have mistaken her ankle. He loves that ankle. Besides, if it were someone else, she’d have screamed.

  “Wonderful,” comes Agnola’s exclamation at last. Her shoes stay a moment. Then they disappear.

  The women leave the room maddeningly slowly in a haze of high, rapid voices. Pietro comes out from under the table. Agnola is last. She hesitates in the doorway.

  “Come back,” Pietro says. “We need to talk.”

  She drops her head. Her back is to him, so he has no way of guessing what she’s thinking.

  “Please. It’s important.”

  “It wouldn’t look right for me to be caught talking with you privately.”

  “Should anyone ask, you could say you’re negotiating a gift for a friend. A surprise puppy. Shut the door.”

  “You’ve thought about this.”

  “I’ve thought of nothing else.”

  Agnola shuts the door and turns to him. Her face is solemn and rigid.

  Pietro’s heart melts. “I love you.”

  Agnola winces.

  “She lives.”

  Her eyes flash anger. “Don’t you dare keep saying that!”

  “It’s true. She almost died. I thought she was dead when I asked for the money for the glass coffin. But she didn’t die. And now she is safe. Dolce cannot get to her.”

  “Where is she?”

  “Safe. I told you.”

  “A child who must hide from her mother cannot be called safe. Her whole life is in ruins.”

  “She’s stronger than that. After every one of Dolce’s attempts to kill her, she adapted.”

  “Dolce tried more than once,” says Agnola in a reedlike voice. But it’s not a question. “Tell me where she is.”

  “On the mainland.”

  “What kind of answer is that? The mainland is huge. Why should I believe you?”

  “It’s true.”

  Agnola’s face goes red. Her eyes glisten. She folds her hands together and holds them under her chin. “Where is my precious girl?” she whispers. “Where, exactly?”

  “At the Simoli home.”

  Her mouth drops open. Then a smile forms slowly. “Good Lord, I’ve heard of them. But I don’t know where their home is.”

  “The woods near Marteago. They know your family.”

  Agnola blinks. “The Grimani family owns land there. They summer there. It’s not far.” She lifts just the tip of one shoe and slaps it down. “Take me there.”

  “I will.”

  Her cheeks go slack. “You lied to me.”

  “No. I withheld information.”

  She gives him a baleful look.

  “It’s different, Agnola. I had to.”

  “You let me suffer.”

  “I wish I could have spared you that. But you are open, Agnola. And Dolce catches everything. She would have looked at your face and known.”

  “I have kept you secret, our love.” Her hand goes to her mouth. “No. She figured that out.” She wrings her hands. “What part did you play in it all?”

  “The part of the wretch. I will tell you all, every detail. But I never harmed Bianca. And had I not played my role, she might be dead now. No, she would be dead. Most assuredly. Dolce is determined.”

  Agnola pulls on her fingers. “This is a tragedy.”

  “Yes. But only Dolce need sink forever. The human soul can rise after terrible destruction, Agnola. You know that. Bianca is rising above it even as we speak. Sebastiano courts her and she responds. In only a week I’ve seen her change. A blush comes to her cheek when he enters the room.”

  “Sebastiano?”

  “Messer Simoli. You’ll like him. He’s a fine young man, and charmingly unpolished. They traveled together as children with their fathers.”

  Agnola drops her hands as if in defeat. “You know so much, I know nothing. In this moment I feel like a…child. I’ve been frightened and stupid. The spinster who’s as foolish as she is homely.”

  “Far from it. You are the most constant woman I’ve ever known. You have stood by Dolce in her ravings, despite your grief. You see whatever good there is in people. You put that first. You are full of love. No one is more beautiful than the fount of love.”

  Agnola puts a finger on her bottom lip, that lip Pietro loves to nibble. Her eyes look tentative.

  “Love me, Agnola. Please.”

  “How can I resist?”

  Agnola stands at the high table in the library. She turns the pages of the tome slowly. She does not read, but she appreciates the flow of the letters and the decorative paintings. She runs a gloved finger along the page. Marin doesn’t like them to to
uch the pages with bare hands because over time they will leave marks. And it is important to follow Marin’s guidelines in his absence. He’s coming home to personal sorrow. At least his library will be intact.

  Agnola is looking at a choir book Marin bought from a collection in Munich that originally came from the church of San Bartolomeo in Venezia. She stops at a painting. Vines twist around the outer frame of the central picture, with a profusion of flowers in yellow and red among deep green leaves. In the middle sits Maria the Virgin with the baby Gesù. They are surrounded by dazzling gold. The mother’s eyes don’t look down at the infant, but out at the viewer, at the world. And they brim with pain, as though even then she sensed the agony ahead. What courage it takes to love someone you know is doomed.

  The choir books in the old church of Santa Sofia are not so elaborate. It’s an old building, in severe need of repairs. But Agnola goes there every Sunday and she’d never think of going anywhere else. Pietro says a humble church is the only church that has a chance of being honest.

  But then, Agnola has come to realize that almost no one has a chance of being honest.

  Footsteps clack along the hall. Agnola goes to the library door and watches as Antonin enters the music room. After all that talk about the music room being Bianca’s domain, Dolce has taken it over. Doesn’t she realize that’s an open admission that she has been assured Bianca is dead? Is she so far from sane that she doesn’t feel the need to hide her efforts? She has never mentioned the disappearance of the glass chest-bench, either. She doesn’t pretend she has been robbed; her behavior says it really belonged to Bianca.

  Every morning Dolce strums unmusically on the harp and weeps. Then she stands by the window and stares at the canal for hours on end. She goes through her day with perhaps a total of twenty words to others. She is like a crab, all folded in on herself.

  Still, Agnola feels no pity. She feels fear: Dolce must never learn Bianca lives.

  From here, Agnola can’t make out what Antonin is saying. She moves quietly into the hall until the voices become clear.

  “Messer Sanudo? Again?” says Dolce. “All right. Show him in.”

  Antonin leaves the music room and heads for the main staircase.

  Agnola goes hot all over. Fate is handing her an opportunity. She can’t hesitate.

  She runs after Antonin and catches him by the sleeve at the top of the stairs. “Please, Antonin,” she whispers. “You must delay him. Say the signora needs time to dress. Take him into the courtyard for a while.”

  “The courtyard is cold.”

  “But sunny. It’s a sunny day. Have Lucia La Rotonda make him a hot drink and bring him zaleti while he waits.”

  “We have none.”

  “What do you mean? She made many the other day, just to please Dolce.”

  “The signora had her throw them out. She says they were the lost signorina’s favorite biscuit.”

  A perversion of a penance perhaps, since zaleti are Dolce’s favorite, too? Crazy Dolce. “Then whatever biscuits she has. I don’t care, Antonin. We must delay him. Find a way.” She squeezes his arm. “It’s crucial.”

  “As you wish, of course.” He goes down the stairs.

  Agnola rushes to look under Dolce’s gilded bedstead. She has no idea what size a flask of quicksilver would be, so it might be hidden anywhere. Nothing. She kneels in front of one chest after another, feeling through the folded clothing, then the sheets and pillowcases. Nothing, nothing.

  She gets to her feet and looks at the wardrobe on its carved lion paws. Please, please, let it be here. The heavy doors swing open. Stacks of books rise in two towers. This is where Marin keeps the ones he plans to restore.

  And, there, in the corner, is an iron flask. Agnola doesn’t open it. She doesn’t know what quicksilver looks like anyway. And what else could it be?

  Now, where can she put it?

  She could throw it off the balcony, but someone might see.

  Where will Messer Sanudo fail to look?

  She goes into the sewing room. The flask is short enough to fit under the lid of the yarn basket. She snatches up gold silk and wraps the flask in it, tying the cloth very, very loosely at the top with a bit of yarn. Then she stuffs in ribbons, padding the flask around the sides and up over the stopper. She lets the tip of one yellow ribbon hang out, as though someone was careless in putting it away. She sets this in one corner of the basket and arranges the yarn neatly around it. Her creation looks like a silk bag of ribbons.

  Agnola goes out into the hall. She should go to her own room and wait, the picture of innocence. But the suspense of not knowing what Messer Sanudo is doing from one moment to the next is unbearable. She breathes deep and heads for the music room.

  She had not been planning this. Or, if she had, she didn’t realize it. But everything fits now. So far as Agnola knows, there is no evidence to support Dolce. Not one thing.

  She knocks on the music room door and enters without waiting.

  Dolce looks at her with surprise. “Did Antonin tell you to come in here, too? Are we to be interrogated together again?”

  Agnola doesn’t dare answer. She is new to lies. Her best course is to say and do as little as possible. She takes the chair beside Dolce’s.

  Antonin comes in followed by Messer Sanudo and two younger men, all three in black. They bow and Messer Sanudo introduces his companions. Agnola’s chest squeezes painfully.

  “Officials of the Republic,” says Dolce, in a superior tone. She barely nods. “What is it you require this time, Messer Sanudo?”

  “We’ve visited Torcello.”

  “Ah, my old homeland. Did you see a yellow wildcat?”

  Messer Sanudo clears his throat. “I fear you do not understand the gravity of the charges against you, Signora. This is no time to talk nonsense.” He takes a step forward. “The people living on Torcello know of no mirror making on the island. There are but a few families there, since the island has been reinhabited only in the last few years, so we questioned each of them. We were most thorough. There was, apparently, a number of unfortunates living there for a while. But they were evicted when the rightful owners returned to their homes.”

  “Unfortunates?” says Dolce. “You mean dwarfs?”

  Agnola jerks to attention.

  “Yes, in fact.” Messer Sanudo sniffs. “How did you know that?”

  “I told you, I lived there. I made mirrors there.”

  “You lived in a dwarf colony?”

  “Yes.”

  Messer Sanudo takes another step forward. “We also went to Murano. The task was much more time consuming there. Did you know that nearly three thousand people are employed in glass making there?”

  “I know little about Murano,” says Dolce.

  “We went into every factory, every shop. No one gets their mirrors from Torcello. Everyone on Murano makes their own. With a formula they invented.”

  “Today. But not eight years ago.”

  Messer Sanudo gives a loud sigh. “Signora, many factories make small pieces of glass. But no one on Murano makes these little pocket mirrors, though now they are talking about doing so. Apparently, every girl and woman of Venezia wants one.”

  Dolce smiles. “Vanity prevails.”

  “That leaves us with only your story. Do you understand? And your story makes no sense, Signora.”

  “Truth often doesn’t make sense.”

  “Do you have anything that can corroborate your story?”

  “Of course.”

  Messer Sanudo’s eyes widen. He looks relieved. “You do? Well, show us, dear lady.”

  “I make the mirrors in a storeroom. If you look, you’ll find the glass and tin and stone weights.”

  “Please lead us there.”

  Dolce looks at Agnola. “My sister-in-law can show you. She’s familiar with that storeroom. You know what I mean, Agnola.”

  Agnola’s neck and checks are afire. But she shakes her head, as though in confusion. “I’m not
sure.”

  “Both of you can lead us there.”

  “Is that an order?” asks Dolce.

  “I’m afraid it is, Signora.”

  “In that case,” says Dolce with a smile, “who can refuse?”

  They go down the stairs, a silent procession. Agnola’s eyes feel glassy and dry.

  They go to the storeroom, past casks of wine. Dolce’s nest is there, the nest Agnola and Pietro frequented. Agnola has to close her eyes for a moment. Antonin has brought them all candles. The idea of dropping hers and simply setting the whole palace on fire flashes through Agnola’s mind. She trembles.

  “Where are they?” Dolce shines her flame in the rear corners of the storeroom. “Where!” She looks at Agnola. “What have you done with them?”

  Agnola threw them in the Canal Grande. After Pietro came to ask for money for a glass coffin, Agnola knew Dolce was responsible for Bianca’s death. And she knew Dolce had somehow gotten Pietro to play a role. She couldn’t begin to guess how, but the certainty blinded her.

  She went down to the storeroom and found Dolce’s paraphernalia for mirror making. She tossed it all off the balcony. She didn’t do it secretively or to thwart Dolce in her attempts to exonerate herself with Messer Sanudo—she hadn’t thought that far ahead. She did it in the brightness of day, like a young girl making wishes. She did it to steal from Dolce the chance to make more mirrors, because mirrors had been the ruin of them all. She did it to protect them, though she thought they were all lost already.

  And now it has come to this. As though she’d planned it. How strangely things turn out.

  Agnola steps backward, away from Dolce.

  Dolce comes at her, hands outstretched.

  Messer Sanudo steps between them. “Signora, please contain yourself. Trying to transfer the blame to your sister-in-law may make things worse for you.”

  Dolce looks at him oddly. “Worse? There’s still the quicksilver. Follow me.”

  And so the procession climbs the stairs again. They go into Dolce’s room. She opens the wardrobe and her mouth forms a silent shriek. She looks at Agnola. “It was here this morning. Where did you put it?”

  Agnola doesn’t dare look away. She plays a statue.