The Girl with the Painted Face

by Gabrielle Kimm

  ‘Sofia, come here and meet Signor Martinelli,’ Niccolò Zanetti says then. Sofia, who is still watching the boy with the tilted smile, starts and turns towards where Signor Zanetti is standing next to a stocky man with grey hair and a now smeared and blurred white-painted face. His hair too is on end. The young man in the diamond-patterned leggings picks up a wooden box and moves away.

  ‘Here she is, Agostino, here she is! Signorina Genotti,’ Niccolò Zanetti says, putting an arm around her shoulders. ‘Sofia Genotti. The seamstress-in-training I was telling you about.’

  Agostino cuts across Zanetti. ‘This is the girl?’ He beams. ‘Oh, how entirely marvellous!’

  Sofia blushes as Agostino continues, ‘Signorina, you might just be the answer to a particularly heartfelt prayer. We are sorely in need of a seamstress – see here…’ He turns away from her, lifting an elbow, and Sofia sees a long rent in the side-seam of his ballooning white smock. Poking his fingers into it, he spreads them out, making the rent gape. Sofia sees skin beneath the cloth and is momentarily embarrassed at the unsought intimacy.

  ‘Look at that!’ Agostino says, shaking his head. ‘Just happened tonight. And poor Cosima’s dress is almost in pieces – being held together with the barest web of threads.’ He lowers his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. ‘I have to admit that we are struggling to keep our costumes together. To my shame, we’re becoming more threadbare and shabby with every performance.’ Pausing, he adds, ‘None of us is gifted with a needle. Something simply has to be done.’

  ‘Agostino has complained about this often, and so, the moment I met you in Modena and learned your story, I thought —’ Niccolò Zanetti begins, turning to Sofia.

  ‘You did – and it was an excellent thought indeed!’ Agostino interrupts. He leans forwards. ‘My dear, Signor Zanetti has just told me all about you. He’s made me a suggestion, and so now I have a proposition for you. A preposterous but perfect proposition. Tell me what you think of it. We are here in Bologna for three or four days, so… so might you see your way to spending a little time with us here in the city and working on these damned costumes for us, getting them fit to be used? In return for a small remuneration, of course. We haven’t a great deal to offer, but will pay you what we can.’

  Sofia’s mouth opens. She looks from Signor Martinelli to Niccolò Zanetti and from him to her bandaged hand. Poking at her broken finger, it is still hot and tight and sore. ‘Oh, signori – oh God, I’d like nothing better. I truly, truly cannot think of anything I’d rather do, but…’ She pauses, and despairing tears begin to prickle in her nose. ‘I’m not sure that I can. It’s my hand… I hurt my hand last week. My finger might be broken. And I don’t think I can…’

  Agostino frowns. ‘Broken?’

  Sofia nods.

  Niccolò Zanetti clears his throat. ‘Let me take another look at it for you. If it’s a sprain, it’ll certainly be on the mend.’

  Sofia swallows. ‘Now?’

  ‘Why not? Let’s see what state it’s in, shall we?’ He begins to unwrap the binding around Sofia’s fingers. The tuft of dirty wool falls to the ground from between the two fingers as the linen strip unwinds and dangles, limp and stained; the final few inches come away and the strip too drops to the ground to lie sadly on the cobbles.

  Zanetti takes Sofia’s hand in his and examines it.

  The sore finger is a greyish purple. Sofia turns her hand over; the bruising is darker on the underside, and the swelling more obvious. Slowly, holding her breath and grimacing against possible pain, she attempts to bend it.

  ‘Oh, this looks much better than I had feared it might, my dear,’ Zanetti says.

  ‘But it still won’t move properly and I… oh God… I don’t think I can sew with it yet.’ As the thought of the opportunity which is about to pass her by settles on Sofia like a sodden blanket, she bites the inside of her cheek, fighting tears, pressing the back of her good hand against her mouth.

  7

  Angelo da Bagnacavallo climbs out of the largest of the Coraggiosi’s wagons. They all seem preoccupied, he thinks, watching them clustering around the little apothecary and whoever that girl is. She’s pretty. Bedraggled and grubby perhaps, but very pretty, nonetheless. That mouth of hers is ripe and ready. Perhaps he should stay for a while longer, and find out more about her. Blowing out his cheeks, he puffs a soft breath, tapping his lips with a finger, staring back at the troupe, trying to decide.

  Maybe it would be better to introduce himself to the girl before he goes? He ought to make sure that bastard Beppe doesn’t move in and attract her attention, apart from anything else.

  But then – he has arranged to see Sebastiano before dusk.

  He has to see him: after today, Sebastiano will be back at Franceschina, and the troupe will have moved on, and he, Angelo, will be literally tearing his hair from his scalp. He cannot wait. The Coraggiosi won’t be performing at Franceschina for several weeks. Even thinking about having to wait that long makes him itch. He cannot do it.

  A few moments here should not make too much difference, though. He will introduce himself, see how long the girl is likely to be around; then if it seems likely she will be there later on, he can head over to Sebastiano’s city rooms and buy what he needs. Edging past a teetering pile of boxes, he walks up to where the apothecary is holding one of the girl’s hands in both of his own. Everyone is staring at him and the girl, their gazes flicking from the girl’s face to her clearly damaged hand, to the apothecary’s frowning expression. Angelo says nothing, but stares at the girl, quickly registering her taut prettiness, the swell of her breasts against the edge of her undeniably filthy bodice, the wildness of her curly hair. He runs his tongue over his lips. She is small and slight and almost edible.

  She looks up and sees him, and a deep flush rises in her cheeks.

  Pleased with this reaction, he smiles at her, allowing his gaze to dip to her mouth and back up. Then, lifting his eyebrows and inclining his head in the smallest of bows, he says, ‘Who have we here?’

  Agostino and the others turn his way. Angelo sees with some satisfaction a scowl rise on Beppe’s face at the sight of him.

  Agostino says, ‘Angelo, you remember Niccolò Zanetti?’

  Angelo, who has vaguely recognized the apothecary, has no recollection of the man’s name, but he lies smoothly. ‘Of course. Signore, how are you?’

  ‘Well, thank you,’ the man called Zanetti says with a swift smile.

  ‘And this’, Agostino says, patting the girl’s shoulder, ‘is a young lady named Sofia Genotti. Sofia, this is Angelo, our inamorato. Sofia has just seen the show, Angelo. Niccolò has brought her to us because… because, thank the heavens, she is gifted with a needle.’ He beams. ‘We are hoping she might have a stab at mending some of the costumes. Just what we need, do you not agree?’

  ‘Oh yes. Indeed. We’re a sadly scruffy bunch at present.’ Angelo flicks a dismissive glance over towards Beppe in his torn shirt, then looks back at Sofia. The colour deepens in her cheeks as she meets his eye and she drops her gaze to the ground in confusion.

  Happy that he has had the initial effect upon the girl that he would have hoped for, Angelo stares for another second or two at Sofia’s mouth, then determines to make his way over to Sebastiano’s to effect the all-too-necessary purchases. He will not be able to concentrate on this girl later on unless he does.

  ‘I hope’, he says, ‘to make your acquaintance further later this evening. Will you be eating with us? I have an errand to run, but shall return shortly.’

  ‘Yes, Sofia and Niccolò will be eating with us, but where are you go —?’ Agostino begins, but Angelo has already turned away. Scratching at the back of his head, he walks off, through a confusion of narrow streets towards a wide piazza, behind which sit Sebastiano da Correggio’s city rooms.

  By the time he bangs on Sebastiano’s door, Angelo has begun to feel an uncomfortable tightness in his chest: a puckering, like a drawing in of purse-strings. Sweat beads
along his upper lip and when a salt drop slides into the corner of his mouth, he wipes it away irritably with the side of his thumb. The ground beneath his feet slopes suddenly away from him, dropping downwards and then pitching back up to rock him as though he were on the open sea. His stomach churns. Closing his eyes, he swallows, tasting a sharp sourness. He leans forward, putting his hands on his knees, and stands bowed, trying to will the earth beneath him to stand still.

  The door opens.

  ‘Signore? Are you ill?’

  Angelo turns his head sideways and looks up, hands still on his knees. Frowning, he tries to focus. A young man is regarding him with obvious concern. For a moment there are two of him, and then the paired images slide together into one. Straightening, Angelo blinks several times, and rubs his eyes. ‘Da Correggio,’ he says. ‘I need to see Signor da Correggio. Tell him I’m here. Angelo da Bagnacavallo. He’s expecting me.’

  ‘Please, come inside.’ The young man holds the door open for him. ‘I will tell Signor da Correggio that you’re here.’

  Angelo sits down on a carved stool. His pulse is racing. The giddiness which engulfed him just now is still swirling around him, and the wooden boards beneath his feet are bucking and heaving. A terrible sense of urgency is threatening to overwhelm him now – that increasingly familiar sensation which always seems to hover somewhere between exhilaration and panic; he can never seem to determine which, nor whether or not he enjoys the feeling.

  Footsteps on the staircase overhead. One flight, then another, then another, growing louder. Heavy and quick.

  ‘God, how much bloody grappa have you had?’ Sebastiano da Correggio’s voice is scornful.

  Angelo shakes his head. ‘Not much. Not enough.’

  Sebastiano clicks his tongue against his teeth and rolls his eyes. ‘Come with me,’ he mutters. Taking Angelo by the elbow, he steers him towards the stairs.

  The sala is long and low-ceilinged. The heavy rafters are thickly painted in detailed patterns, and yet, despite the cheerful colours, the place has an unsettling air. Despite the elegance of the furniture, the walls are bare and no ornaments or embellishments can be seen. Several large wooden crates stand piled at one side of the room. A general lack of love is obvious. Even though a fire is burning, none of the many lamps or candles have been lit, so the light is dim and flickering, and on the table is a row of bottles, each corked and sealed; the firelight catches on the facets of the glass and glitters there, giving the bottles a strangely animated air, as though the substance they contain is moving. Each bottle is full of what appears to be a viscous, darkish brown syrup.

  Angelo stares at the bottles, fighting nausea. He pushes his fingers up into his sleeve and scratches the skin of his forearm, then scratches too down inside the neck of the doublet, elbow winged high, face distorted as he pushes his fingers down inside the wool, unable fully to reach the source of his discomfort. ‘Do you have a glass?’ he says, turning to Sebastiano.

  ‘What? You want some now? Do you have to?’

  Angelo struggles to keep his face impassive. ‘I’d prefer to. Will you join me?’ he says, trembling slightly. ‘I have to be back with the troupe for the evening meal, but I should like…’ He tails off.

  ‘I’ll take a grappa with you, to keep you company, if you wish,’ Sebastiano says. ‘But I’d rather keep a clear head as I’m expecting a visitor.’

  He leaves the room, returning a moment later with a bottle of grappa, two tiny glasses and a spoon, all of which he places on the little table. He pours a couple of fingers’ depth of grappa into each glass. Then, drawing the cork from one of the bottles with a faint ‘pop’ and holding the spoon over one of the glasses, he tips a small amount of the sticky brown liquid into it. Tilting the spoon – slowly, slowly – he allows the liquid to fall into the glass. It swirls for a moment in the grappa, then fans out and dissolves, staining the clear liquid a pale honey colour. He puts the cork back into the bottle, pushing it in firmly with his thumb.

  Angelo pulls one of the chairs over and sits down. Making a dome of his two cupped hands, he holds them around the glass like a protective cave, not touching it; then, staring down into it, he leans down and breathes in the sharp sweet scent of the syrup. The anticipation is almost as good as the dose. Almost. He closes his eyes. After a moment, he picks up the glass with the tips of his fingers, tilts his head back and swallows the contents.

  8

  Niccolò Zanetti holds Sofia’s hand in his and rubs the broken finger gently with the ball of his thumb. ‘Mmm. Looking at it now, I doubt this finger is broken, after all, but it’s clearly still painful.’ He looks up at Agostino. ‘There is little possibility she could do more than cobble basic stitches together right now.’

  Wiping her eyes and nose with her knuckles, Sofia sees Signor Zanetti hesitate. Then he says slowly, ‘But here’s another thought for you.’

  She glances from Zanetti to Agostino and back.

  ‘How about this? Might she not travel with you on to – where do you go next? Ferrara? That hand will be healed and back to normal in possibly as little as a week. If you keep her with you, she can start work as soon as she’s fit. You’d have yourself a resident costume mistress.’

  Agostino frowns, tapping his teeth with a fingernail, apparently considering.

  ‘What’s the matter, caro?’ comes a soft voice, and Sofia turns to see the beautiful woman from the play coming over from the wagons, no longer wearing the sumptuous red dress, but clothed now in an unfussy brown woollen bodice and skirt, which still, Sofia thinks, seem to accentuate her lovely features. ‘What is all this?’

  ‘Oh, good – Cosima. You can decide.’ Agostino takes Cosima’s hand and holds it against his cheek.

  ‘Decide what?’

  ‘On whether or not we take this child with us when we move on.’

  ‘Take her with us? Why? Why should we want to do that?’

  Sofia swallows uncomfortably at this, but when she risks a glance at the woman’s face, she sees that her expression is mild.

  In a jumble of unfinished sentences and interruptions, Agostino and Niccolò Zanetti explain. Cosima listens carefully. ‘What did this man in Modena say you had stolen?’ she says to Sofia.

  Sofia hesitates. She decides on the truth. ‘Money, Signora. A purse of money.’ She shakes her head. ‘But I didn’t do it. I wouldn’t.’

  ‘Who was he? Why would he have —’

  Agostino interrupts. ‘Oh, Cosima, does it really matter?’

  ‘It might.’

  Sofia says, ‘I don’t know his name. He was just someone who… who…’ She pauses while she tries to put what happened into words, staring at her own hands, which she is twisting together in front of her. ‘Well, he wanted more from me than the mended seam he had paid for, and… then he became angry when I refused.’

  The rent in the linen was long and ragged: Sofia suspects that it might have been torn in a fight. Slit with the blade of a dagger, perhaps. But her stitching is almost invisible. She hopes the gentleman will approve of her handiwork. Perhaps he will recommend her to others of his acquaintance.

  The door opens.

  ‘Ah. So it’s you. I saw you in the workroom at the signora’s, the day I delivered the shirt for mending. I asked if she might send you. Did you do the repair yourself?’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘Let’s have a look then.’ The man who is blocking the doorway to the sala is tall and bulky, with dough-coloured skin and hands like hams. His head is almost hairless, but a thin line of dark beard outlines a glistening mouth. Sofia is surprised at the width of his neck – it is, she thinks, nearly as big around as her waist. His doublet hangs unfastened, and the shirt beneath strains over a belly like a sack of grain.

  She passes him the mended shirt.

  He casts it a perfunctory glance, then throws it to one side, his gaze fixed upon Sofia. The shirt catches for a moment over the arm of one of the chairs, then slips and falls to the floor. The man does not pic
k it up.

  ‘Neat work. I thought as much. You’re clearly… good with your hands,’ he says, running his tongue over already wet lips. He steps towards Sofia, who backs away. ‘Let’s see what else you can do with them, shall we?’

  Sofia’s eyes widen. She shakes her head. ‘No, signore. If you please, I —’

  ‘Oh, I do please, you’re quite right. You please me. In fact, I think you’ll please me very much.’

  Sofia backs right up to the wall and presses herself against the tapestry. The man pushes up against her, fumbling for her breast, one thick knee pressing in between her own. He smells of sweat and ale, and his breath is foul.

  ‘Bloody get off me!’ she says, indistinctly. ‘Piss off, you bastard! Vaffanculo!’

  The man tilts his head sideways, trying to kiss her; Sofia shoves upwards under his chin with the heel of her hand. The man’s teeth click together; his head jerks back; he grunts in pain. Sofia lifts a knee. The man doubles over and a high-pitched, wheezing groan spews out of his open mouth.