I swallowed the last crumb and licked my fingers. “My friend Massimo only got one florin for me.”
“I was worth more than you because I wasn’t covered with dirt and lice,” Marco teased, wagging his black eyebrows playfully. I scowled and he shrugged. “Good friend, that Massimo.”
It was my turn to shrug. People do what they must to survive. The streets of Florence had taught me that. I shouldn’t have been surprised, except perhaps that Massimo hadn’t sold me sooner. Trust was not to be indulged in by such as me. Maybe I had once had parents, but for as long as I could remember, I had been alone in a way that other people weren’t. “At least it wasn’t my parents who sold me!” I said.
“At least I knew my parents,” Marco returned, grinning. “Did you ever try to find yours?”
“I never really thought about them,” I admitted. “I was just glad they didn’t strangle or drown me.”
“Sometimes I think it would be better if my parents had killed me, instead of selling me to Silvano. Maybe if I hadn’t been so beautiful.” Marco’s face shuttered with despair, as if it really were made of porcelain, as if he weren’t a living thing. It was a look I would see often on the faces of the children at this establishment.
I ventured softly, “Is it bad here?”
“Very bad, but they feed you well,” he said flatly. “You can’t work if you’re not well fed. He’s going to beat you soon. Whatever you do, don’t resist! And don’t scream. He likes that and it’ll make him hit you more.”
“I’ve been beaten before and I never screamed,” I said, with some pride. I was no doughy girl to shriek at a little pain. Many times I had withstood Paolo’s fists when he knew I had bread or meat and he wanted it. I often hid myself when I acquired something. The burnt-out walls of the old granary market at Orto San Michele, or the wooden supports of the Ponte Santa Trinita, those were good hiding places. I would have given anything to be squatting there now. I knew all the hiding places in Florence, all the secret passages and shortcuts. Some of my faith in ingegno trickled back into me and I lifted my chin. “I won’t let him beat me! Even if he does, I won’t be here long. I’ll find a way to get out.”
“There’s no escape from Silvano!”
“I’ll think of something. I’ll use ingegno,” I said with certainty. “I’ll run away.”
“He’ll find you and bring you back.”
“If Silvano knows who my parents are, I’ll find them, and they’ll protect me,” I said vehemently. “Or I’ll hide. I know everywhere there is to hide in Florence!”
“No one can protect you from Silvano.” Marco looked at me with pity. “There’s no leaving this place. You’ll see. You have to learn that if you don’t do what he wants you to, it will go hard on you. You’ll be hurt. You could be killed. He enjoys killing.”
“In the Arno, the bodies—” I started. Maria and Simonetta were pouring some flowery scented potion on me and rubbing it into my skin with coarse mitts. They had left lye soap caked in my hair to kill the lice, and my scalp tingled with heat, but I shivered. I remembered the corpse of a young woman, little more than a girl, that I’d seen floating out in the water. She had been famous, a beautiful and desirable courtesan. Everyone knew she had lived here. The ebbing water had exposed her slashed face, ribbons of skin floating out with her hair, and her horribly burnt hands with her arms reaching up out of the water to end in blackened nubs.
“When someone’s displeased him, he makes a demonstration. It’s always bloody. Don’t displease him. Please, Luca Bastardo, take my advice. You seem like someone I could talk to, someone like me who could survive in here. Don’t make it worse for yourself.”
I stared at Marco. His face was serious. With the single exception of the old man at the Piazza Santa Maria Novella telling me to use ingegno, no one had ever before told me to take care of myself. Now here was Marco pleading with me to do so. Massimo, my brother from the streets, hadn’t felt this way. I asked, with some suspicion, “Why do you care what happens to me?”
“Because I care about myself,” Marco said, turning away and pacing. “I’ve been here for eight years. I’ve learned how to stay alive. Most children break into pieces; they wither and die. I stay alive by protecting what’s good inside me. That’s all we have in here, and if we’re not careful, what we’re forced to do makes it go away.”
“I don’t think people have much goodness inside them,” I said, biting off the words.
“Some people do. Not the patrons. That’s one of the reasons I’m nice to the other children. It makes me different from the patrons. It gives me something to live for.” He lifted his head as if he’d heard something. “Take care of yourself, Luca!” He waved and vanished back into the shadows.
“Shush, we work,” Simonetta breathed. A frisson of fear coursed up the back of my neck, but when I looked around, I didn’t see anything. Her eyes flicked toward a window and I glanced there. Perhaps I sensed movement out of the corner of my eye, but the window was empty, like a mirror with no one behind it. The suggestive absence terrified me more than if Silvano had stood in front of me. I fought the urge to cover myself. If he knew that I knew he was watching, perhaps it wouldn’t please him.
THE LAST PLUM CLOUDS HAD VANISHED into the stars when Simonetta and Maria finally stepped back to survey me. My hair fell in a straight red-blond sheet down my back to my shoulder blades, my skin was scrubbed pink and shiny all over, and a soft musky scent wafted out from me. I held the crook of my arm to my nose and sniffed, smelling myself, feeling myself. Was I still me? I’d never imagined I could look or smell this way. Simonetta licked her thumb and brushed it across my left eyebrow. The inner hairs of that brow bristled straight up; I’d seen that before, on a windless morning when the capricious Arno was flat and silver and showed my face to me. Simonetta scowled at my eyebrow, then shrugged. Maria held out a gauzy yellow camicia and I slipped it on, relieved not to be naked. They led me back through the palazzo.
We took a different hall, just as opulent as the first, and came to a dining room. On the table was set a roast boar with an apple in its mouth, a plate of roast fowl, a bowl of steaming bean soup, a small round of bread, and a basket of figs and grapes. The savory smell of rosemary and crispy fat perfumed the air. I ran to the table and grabbed up the soup, gulping it down in loud slurps. It must have been delicious, because the food in that place always was, but all I cared about was assuaging the ache that beat in my blood and stomach. Then I tore into the fowl, ripping off a drumstick with one hand and a hunk of breast meat with the other. I was reaching for the second drumstick when Silvano spoke behind me.
“You eat like a starving dog.”
I froze, my fingers still locked into the soft hot meat of the succulent bird. Slowly I drew my hand back and then turned to face Silvano. He stood in the threshold, holding a long, weighted silk sack that swung back and forth like a pendulum. He stepped closer, scrutinizing me. With his free hand he lifted up a lock of my newly clean hair, then let it fall. A quiver started in my spine, but I stilled it before it could grow into a shudder.
“You clean up well,” he said, with a satisfied smirk. “I knew you would.” He moved his hand in a slow circle so that the lumpy sack swung in a wider arc.
“There are rules in this establishment,” Silvano said, his pointy chin quivering with venomous pleasure. “Rules that must be followed at all times.” His hand moved faster and the sack picked up speed. “You will be clean and quiet,” he said. And then he flicked his wrist, a tiny, expert motion, and the bag blurred toward me. It snapped into my ribs with a force that rocked me on my feet.
I opened my mouth to scream and Marco’s words rang in my brain: “And don’t scream…. It’ll make him hit you more.” SoI exhaled slowly through my open mouth. The sack was still circling. Silvano wasn’t done; he was going to hit me again. I couldn’t help myself. Despite Marco’s warnings, I darted around to the other side of the table. Panic like lightning flickered in every limb, every v
ein. There was nothing but fear of the pain. Silvano tittered and followed me, herding me against the wall.
“You will please the men who come to you.” Silvano’s wrist shook, and the sack slammed into my gut. I fell to my knees, retching. “Do as you are told, or I will kill you!” He struck me again and again. Water filled up my eyes, but I never uttered a sound. After a while his admonishments took on a disappointed tone. He whipped the sack at me in frustration and then left the room. I lay curled up on my side, clutching my stomach. Tears plopped past my nose, the food I’d just eaten was disgorged on me, and, yes, a pool of urine was spread out around my legs. I had respect for pain ever afterward. It can deprive even the strongest man of his dignity.
When I could see through my bleary eyes, Marco was kneeling over me. “A patron left my room and I saw Silvano going out, so I came to check on you. I was worried about you; some children don’t make it through the first beating. But you did well. You didn’t scream.”
“I wet myself like a little girl and puked like a dog,” I said, groaning as he helped me up.
“But you didn’t cry out, and it was your first time,” Marco consoled me. “Even I cry out sometimes, and I’m the best at taking pain.” He handed me a silver cup filled with wine. I took it with a shaking hand, grateful for his kindness. “Drink it all, Luca,” he urged me. “Simonetta will clean you and take you to your room. Rest. Silvano will send a patron to you later. Just lie there. That’s all they want, in the beginning. Lie there and breathe.” I bowed my head over the wine cup, hoping Marco wouldn’t see the tears stuttering the purple surface of the wine.
“What’s the bag filled with?” I asked.
“Gold florins,” Marco said. “They hurt but they don’t cut. Come now, drink. It will ease the pain. It will make you stronger.”
I managed a deep swallow. “It would have been better if I’d died on the street.”
“You can’t think that way. You get used to it. Time goes on,” Marco said softly. “Come on, you’re the bastardo who uses ingegno, that’s what you told me.”
“What good is ingegno here, now?” I sniffled.
“Use your ingegno to imagine things that will help you survive, like finding your parents.” He rose. “I have to go. I have special privileges because I’ve been here so long, but if I’m late, Silvano beats me. And he doesn’t go easy on me, like he did with you.” He left quickly, and Simonetta and Maria entered the room, holding rags, brushes, and a clean shirt.
THERE WAS BARELY TIME for me to look around and take in the bed and the little chest. The bed was covered with a red silk coverlet which lay over sheets of yellow cloth. I lifted the sheets to see an unimaginable luxury: a mattress. It was thin and a rip in the corner revealed it to be stuffed with horsehair, but I’d never before slept on one. There was a tall window, but it was heavily draped, like all the other windows in this palazzo. A few tallow candles shed a graceless, wan light. This was my room. I’d never had a room before. Then the door opened and I jumped away from the bed as a barrel-chested man with long curling hair and silver in his beard strode in. He was expensively dressed and shod in calf-leather boots. He was the well-known head of the armorers’ guild, and I’d seen him at the market. Or rather, I’d seen him watching me there.
He smiled at me greedily and I thought of how the roast fowl must have felt when I spied it on the table. Terror and humiliation overwhelmed me, and I backed up against the wall. Out on the streets, I could run away when one of the men who paid me a soldi to touch me grew too insistent; here there was no escape. My heart scrambled. I looked around desperately, but there was nowhere to go. The armorer strode over and his hands shook as he reached toward me. I pushed his hands away, but he was strong and wrapped one thick arm around me, pinioning my arms to my sides, and ripped off my shirt. I struggled, but he didn’t notice.
“So soft, so beautiful,” he murmured, his breath gurgling in his throat. “So young.” He fumbled at his breeches and then pushed me facedown onto the bed. It was worse than dying. I screamed and screamed, kept screaming at full volume even when the breath left me. I resisted even though Silvano had made it clear that he would kill me if I did. I would have preferred to be killed, in that moment. I was too shamed to weep and could only close my eyes and pray for death. I realized that God was laughing at me again, and that He was too cruel and uncaring to let me die as I asked.
It was then that I learned that God’s mockery sometimes contains shards of kindness, for He threw me a mote of grace. Suddenly, miraculously, I was no longer in Silvano’s. All of Florence beyond the palazzo was laid out in front of me, as if I could simply step down into the city streets. But it wasn’t just my mind that went there, it was my whole self. The boundaries between physical and imaginary dissolved, and reality seeped into both realms. There was a supernatural vaulting, first of my imagination, then of my senses, and, finally, upon seeing the pigments in the frescoes and hearing the soft voices of the choir, of my entire being into the monumental church of Santa Croce. The Raising of Drusiana in the Evangelist’s life was spread out before me. I had once crouched down in the pews near a priest telling the story to a Catechism class, telling how Drusiana had so loved St. John and kept his commandments that the saint had resurrected her in the name of the Lord. It thrilled me that devotion like that could result in salvation, and I resolved that one day I, too, would demonstrate that kind of love. Perhaps not for a saint, because saints would have nothing to do with trash like me; perhaps not for a person, though I’d longed to be of noble station and belong to a family and wife of my own; perhaps only for the painting itself.
The painting before me deserved my veneration. Every detail was vibrant and beautiful, from the varied emotions on the faces to the blue sky arching over them. If I put my finger to a cheek or brow, I would feel warm skin. It was as if the artist had painted real people thronged around St. John, and I was one of them, watching faith rewarded with renewed life. The artist must have leapt to that marvelous moment in order to paint it thus, just as I leapt there now.
The door closed and the guildsman departed. I slipped bonelessly to the floor. Tears crusted my face, bile soured my mouth, and whitened blood was smeared on my buttocks. I scooted along the floor to wipe it off. Then I just lay there, hurting, staring at the plastered ceiling. I knew that the guildsman was just the first. There would be others. I’d never think well of myself again. The best I could hope for was simply to live on.
After a while—I never knew how long, because time had changed for me, and would never again be the same—Simonetta came in with a towel and water. She pulled me up and cleaned me with brisk, practiced motions. Then, with sad eyes, she gently kissed my forehead.
“Marco?” I whispered. I didn’t quite trust him, though I wanted to, but he had ingegno about this place. He would know what to tell me so I could live with what had just happened to me. Simonetta shook her head.
“I’ll bring food,” she whispered back. At least I wouldn’t starve here.
The many days following that first awful night fell into a rhythm of eating, bathing, working, and sleeping. I felt so disembodied that the rhythm was present but the passage of time wasn’t. While I was working, I traveled. Mostly to Santa Croce, where I spent much time examining the frescoes. I discovered details about them that I’d overlooked when I’d seen them physically: the graceful pose of one pair of praying hands, the rapture in a devoted face, stars twinkling in a blue sky so expansive that I almost fell up into it. The paintings were always there for me, the way a family was for another person. I could belong to them, and they to me, in a way that sustained me. What the old man at Santa Maria Novella had told me was wondrously true: the gate was within me. When beauty called me, the gate opened, and I could travel anywhere. I felt lucky.
Sometimes I saw twilight figures on the stairs or darting behind doors, but other than the patrons, whose faces I tried not to look at, and Simonetta and Maria, I didn’t see anyone. Silvano kept us mostly l
ocked alone in our rooms. I sneaked a look out my door whenever it was unlocked and spied condottieri at the end of the corridor. When I was taken from my room for a bath, I noted other condottieri patrolling the brothel grounds; the only way out was past them. There was simply no way to escape. With the silence and the isolation and the oppressive sense of being trapped, I was sad, lonely, and often bored. I was used to plentiful noise and to the boisterous company of Paolo and Massimo. I was used to the freedom of the streets.
One dusk, after about a fortnight, Marco finally ventured out to the atrium. I was glad to see him.
“How’s it going, Luca? Found your parents yet?” he asked, his jovial tone belying the black-and-yellow bruise on his cheek.
“Yeah, they’re coming for me tomorrow in a gold carriage with twelve white horses.”
“Give me a ride?” Marco returned with his ready smile. “I’m so handsome I’ll make the carriage look good.” I gave him a sardonic look. “I brought you a sweet,” he said, tossing it to me. “Though you’re getting plump now.”
“The patrons wouldn’t like it if I looked like I was made out of sticks. They like it that I’m an innocent boy,” I noted, sucking on the sweet.
“I thought you were Luca Bastardo from the street, not so innocent.” Marco grinned.
“It doesn’t matter who I am to them.”
“You’re right, you don’t matter. Realizing that is the start of surviving. So just keep getting fat. You’ll keep Silvano happy. Me, I’m going for a walk in the Piazza Santa Croce.”
“You’re going out?” I asked, astonished, rising partly in the tub.
“Silvano gives me privileges. Because I’ve been here for so long, and I work good. And because boys look better when they’re active outside. They look like, you know, real boys. Regular boys. Patrons like that.”
“I didn’t know it was possible for one of us to leave this place! You could run away from Florence, escape forever!”
Immortal Page 3
