CHAPTER SEVEN
THE EXCHANGE
There he is.” Paolina points.
The other three of us press together on the balcony and look out on the Canal Grande. There’s much to see in both directions. Too much. “How can you pick his boat out from the others?” I ask, counting three fishing boats in the direction Paolina points.
“I can’t, really.” Paolina takes the brown paper parcel that holds her old dress and runs to the door. “I have faith. Come on, Donata. We have to get down there.”
I snatch my satchel, which holds the boy shoes, the clothes for exchange, plus the bareta that Vincenzo used to wear over his messy hair. I stuff it under my nightdress, which I put back on after Paolina’s announcement about this fisherboy. The hidden satchel sticks out fat in front. My eyes meet Paolina’s and we’ve got the same thought. She puts her parcel under her skirt, too. We smile and parade our fake pregnant bellies for a moment.
Paolina peeks out into the long corridor. “All clear.”
Cara passes by just at that moment, with a bucket and a scrub brush. She doesn’t count. None of the servants count. At least not so far as Laura and Paolina and I are concerned. We girls are old enough to go about our day within the palazzo without interference from them.
So the only ones who might question what Paolina and I are doing are family members. Father is undoubtedly working already; he leaves at dawn and doesn’t return till the midday meal.
That means Mother is the one we need to avoid on this floor. But I cannot hear the shrill voices of Maria and Giovanni, so Mother may well be off somewhere with them—probably in the kitchen. At yesterday’s evening meal Maria blurted out that she missed Mother, she missed making treats with her in the kitchen. Mother said that was silly; she was right there. But her face showed that she knew she’s been too scarce lately. She’s allowed the whole marriage business to consume her. She must be in the kitchen with Maria and Giovanni now—I’ll bet on it.
Paolina and I walk to the stairs, our hands clasped in front under the secrets of our fat bellies. We could run, we’re both so excited. But that might arouse Cara’s suspicions.
The next two floors down present the greatest dangers: our other six brothers.
Cristina Brandolini once said she envied me for having such a large family. I was happy when she said it; I love all of us. But this morning I wouldn’t mind if I had fewer brothers to sneak past.
Piero and Antonio and Vincenzo are hardly a threat, of course, because they’re probably already strolling the Merceria, on their way back from walking Father to the Senate. But Francesco could easily be home still, especially if he spent his night frisking around with courtesans. If he caught us on the stairs in our nightdresses, he’d demand to know what we were doing. When we didn’t answer, he’d shoo us back to our floor and start who knows what kind of teasing tonight at the evening meal. And teasing like that could lead to a family inquisition.
Paolina takes the parcel out from under her skirt and puts it under her arm so that both her hands can hold the stair railing. Solemn, she walks on tiptoe.
I kiss her cheek and toss my own satchel over one shoulder. Then I take Paolina’s parcel from under her arm, so that she can hold the railing more firmly. We hardly breathe as we pass the entranceway to the rooms on the next level down.
And now there’s only one floor to go before the ground floor. This is where Bortolo and Nicola sleep, with Aunt Angela to watch over them. This floor is also where the kitchen is, though Cook and Giò Giò sleep on the fourth and fifth floors above the ground floor, with the rest of the servants. And this floor is where Uncle Umberto sleeps. But if he hears us, all we have to do is run. He’s slow in his blindness, and so long as we don’t say a word, he’ll never know who passed on the stairs.
That’s everyone. For now, at least.
We’re halfway down the stairs when laughter rings out—unmistakably Nicola’s. Aunt Angela’s lament predictably follows. Nicola has played some naughty trick on her again.
No sound of Bortolo. Oh, no. Sure enough, there he is, lying on the floor in the middle of the doorway, watching us come down the stairs. His big head rests on the back of his folded arms. His eyes shine like one of Venice’s zillions of cats. He lifts his brows without saying a word.
I nod, equally silent.
We’ve just agreed with our faces alone that I will bribe him, as I have many times before. For, although this is my first time going out on my own, I’ve had other secrets of various types and Bortolo has developed a special knack for discovering them. I’ll have to bring him a treat from outside.
Now he points at Paolina, ready to extort from her as well.
She shakes her head.
Bortolo gets to a sitting position and opens his mouth, but I rush to him and clap my hand over it.
“Please, Bortolo. It’s only me who has a secret,” I hiss. “I’m the only one who owes you. Paolina is going right back upstairs.”
His eyes bore into me over the top of my hand. He doesn’t look convinced.
“I’ll show you,” whispers Paolina, squatting beside him. “I’ll come by on my way back up. I’ll even take you up with me, to play.”
Bortolo peels my hand away from his mouth. “None of you other girls are fun. The only one who plays good is Donata. She’s almost as good as Antonio.”
I warm with pleasure. Antonio has always been the most fun to play with. It’s an honor to be compared to him.
Paolina takes a deep breath. “I’ll get Andriana to hold you steady as you stand on our balcony railing.”
“Andriana won’t agree,” Bortolo whispers. “Only Francesco dares do that.” That child is no fool.
“Yes she will,” says Paolina.
“Bortolo!” calls Aunt Angela, from down the corridor. “Where are you?”
“Nowhere,” calls back Bortolo. He shakes his head at Paolina and leans toward her. “And what if Andriana doesn’t agree?”
“I’ll bring you a plant from Giulia’s garden,” says Paolina. “A flowering plant.”
Bortolo wrinkles his nose. “Who cares about plants?”
Paolina takes a loud breath and I know she’s preparing to argue.
“I’ll bring you an extra-special treat,” I say quickly.
“A treasure,” insists Bortolo.
“Yes, a treasure.”
Bortolo gets up and runs down the corridor. “I’m coming. I’m coming to get you, Nicola, and turn you into a big fat goose with my big fat goose magic and eat you. Yum,” he screams.
Nicola shrieks in fear that is only half a game.
I stifle a laugh, and Paolina and I run the rest of the way down the stairs.
The ground floor is full of the noise of outside, for the big gates that open onto the Canal Grande have been pulled back completely and all Venice pours in with the unfettered stream of sunlight. The fishing boat already bobs in the water channel that cuts into the central foyer of the ground floor. Cook haggles with the fish vendor, who barks orders at a boy. The boy jumps here and there about the boat, finding exactly the fish the vendor wants to show Cook.
Paolina and I hunch in the cool, damp shadows and work our way along the wall until we can duck into the first storeroom.
“Give me those,” Paolina says. “And stay here.”
I’m not used to taking orders from Paolina. But this is her plan—so I hand her my satchel and her parcel and move a little farther into the storeroom. The strong odor of clean wool thread, the odor I’m familiar with from so many mornings of preparing bobbins for the looms, is at odds with the strangeness of the situation. I slowly wind a strand around my arm from wrist to shoulder. When I can’t stand the suspense any longer, I peek into the foyer.
Paolina sits on the stone floor behind Cook, perched on the satchel, which lies on top of the brown paper parcel. In that position, she seems tiny and much younger. Not even Father could be upset that she’s not wearing a veil in front of these fishers. Every now a
nd then she says something to Cook. No one suspects her. She could get away with murder, that’s what Mother says. I bet when she finally enters a convent, the nuns will find her so unruly, they’ll try to marry her off even if it means putting up a dowry for her themselves.
At last Cook leads the fisherman up the stairs and Paolina tosses the parcel and satchel onto the boat. She stands now, with her hands on both hips, imperiously.
I watch for the boy to hand Paolina a satchel in return. But he opens the one she gave him, says a few words, then strips off his shirt. Right there in front of my sister. We’ve seen shirtless boys and men from our window on occasion, but never up close like this. Except for our brothers, and they don’t count. Though Paolina will never marry and, thus, her reputation doesn’t really matter, she shouldn’t be subjected to this sort of thing. I come out of the storeroom, despite the fact that all I have on is my nightdress. “What do you think you’re doing?”
The boy throws the shirt on the stone floor and turns his back as he pulls off his trousers. I go hot with embarrassment, but, even more, I’m amazed at the muscles of his back and bottom and thighs. And astonished that he is as brown under his clothes as on his neck and feet. Why, he must fish naked. The image of the lagoon littered with rocking fishing boats full of naked fisherboys leaves me speechless.
He has already donned the old black hose from my brothers, which look ridiculous, actually, and he’s pulling on the shirt, when we hear the fisherman as he descends.
I race back to my storeroom and peek out.
Paolina picks up the boy’s old shirt and trousers.
“What’s this?” asks the fisherman.
“A trade,” says the boy.
The fisherman looks from the boy to Paolina and back to the boy. The brown paper parcel is nowhere in sight. He turns up his hands. “Why?”
“For fun,” says Paolina. She gives her most charming smile and the fisherman finally laughs with confusion. In a flash I see her as the Mother Superior to her flock of nuns. No one could fail to take her word for anything.
The fisherman gets in the boat and they push off and paddle those long oars, almost as long as the oar of a gondola.
It’s only when Paolina thrusts the boy’s fish-stinky clothes into my face with a triumphant laugh that I put my hands into my long hair and gasp in realization. “A bareta! He didn’t give me his bareta. Or shoes, either.”
“Wear the old ones you stole from the charity pile,” says Paolina.
“They’re in the satchel.”
But the fishing boat is gone.
CHAPTER EIGHT
BAREFOOT
Paolina helps me braid my hair tight at the back. We work silently. There’s no one to hear us, even if we did talk; Giò Giò already came down and closed and secured the great gates to the Canal Grande. But somehow the dim light of this storeroom calls for quiet. The only sun is the thin strands that sneak in through the bars over the small, high window.
Paolina tucks my braid inside the fisherboy’s shirt, which is so long on me, it comes down to midthigh. “Watch where you step,” she says, her voice strangely nasal because she’s holding her nose against the stink of these clothes. She smiles and leaves.
I wish the fisherboy’s shirt gathered tight at the throat like my brothers’ shirts. Then at least I could be sure my hair wouldn’t work its way out as I walk along. But I’ll just have to hold my neck stiff.
I climb over giant spools of wool thread and hide my nightdress in a corner. Then I go to the tall doors that open onto the alley side of our palazzo, turn the key in the hole, and slip out. There’s no way I can lock these doors from the outside, so I simply close them firmly.
The stone under my feet is cool because this alley is in continual shade, with a palazzo on each side, both facing onto the Canal Grande. Only people coming to one or the other palazzo pass here. Luckily, the alley is empty. It’s so quiet, I can hear the hens cluck in the neighboring courtyard.
I walk to the end of the alley and turn. If I were going to Mass, I’d continue on, and over the small bridge ahead. But now I go only halfway down this alley, and, with my heart pounding in my ears, I turn down a side alley I have never ever walked before. I go to the end of it, and stop. The way I’m panting, you’d think I’d been running. I feel almost dizzy.
The wide street in front of me is raucous. I recognize it from the talk at our dining table: This is the Rio Terrà di Maddalena. It was a canal until a few years ago. Now it is among the most traveled passageways of Venice. It’s also one of the filthiest, for although the sweepers clean every night, merchants have been passing here since dawn. I gulp.
We go barefoot indoors all the time. But I’ve never before been outside in bare feet. When I go to church or to a friend’s home, I wear my fancy shoes—the ones I hate. But at least those high soles keep me safe from the mucky street.
Nothing protects my feet now.
I remember the fisherboy’s brown feet. Why, he doesn’t even have shoes. Of course not. It’s so obvious, I almost laugh at what a fool I was. And he probably doesn’t have a bareta, either. If he fishes with no clothes on, he certainly wouldn’t put a hat on his head. I was an idiot to put mine in the satchel. He’s probably sold them both by now.
Well, if he can walk back and forth from his boat to his home every single day with no shoes, then I can certainly go out just this one day with no shoes.
“Move, boy.” A water-carrier pushes me aside with a rough swipe of the arm. The two deep buckets swing heavily from the beam balanced across his shoulders.
I shrink back from the touch of his large hand. We have a courtyard with our own cistern. But many homes get their water from the public cisterns in the campi. The job of carrying water takes enormous strength, because it’s un-ending. This man will trudge all day long from that cistern to every home in our parish that doesn’t have a private cistern.
I walk in the direction that would be to the right as we look out our balcony window onto the Canal Grande. That’s the general direction of Dorsoduro, where the fishermen live. I stay close to the walls, trying to ignore the bits of rubble that tickle my arches and stick between my toes. Every man I pass seems larger than normal, more powerful. I know this is just because the water-carrier gave me a scare. I know I can manage this adventure. There’s nothing really dangerous about it. Just bare feet, that’s all.
A boy my size but a couple of years younger walks toward me. He’s barefoot and in trousers, too, though he has a bareta on. I press against the wall to allow him passage. But he catches my eye, and his own glints. He also hugs the wall closer. I swerve out to go around him, but he quickly swerves himself and our shoulders bash hard.
“What you think you’re doing here?” His face is mean. Three rings of dirt circle the creases of his neck. His breath smells of rancid figs. It warms my cheeks.
Warms my cheeks! No veil. I’m outside without a veil. That’s what it means to be a boy—but, oh, it makes me feel as if I were naked. I fight the urge to cover my face with my hands.
“This spot’s mine.”
His language is crude and hard to follow. I have to get away from his nastiness fast. I lower my head and try again to pass.
He grabs me by the hair at the nape of my neck. “What’s this? What you doing with hair like this?”
I twist away, but he pins me to the wall.
“Whatever gimmick you’ve got, boy, go use it someplace else.” His face is so close to mine, I fear his lips will brush my cheek. “Don’t ever let me see you begging around here again.”
So that’s it. “I’m not begging,” I say reasonably. “I’m a fisherboy.”
“With this white skin?” He pinches my cheek. “If you beg as bad as you lie, you’ll not last long in this world. Take your fake fancy talk and go die someplace else.” He spits in my face and walks on.
I’m breathing heavily as I wipe the boy’s saliva from my nose and brow. I want to go straight home. Now, this very instant.
Straight into the arms of my clean, cooing sisters. But the beggar boy went in the direction of home. Oh, I spy him now, leaning against the wall by the opening of the alley that leads back to my palazzo. I have no choice; I hurry in the other direction, shaking with disgust.
I don’t want to go to Dorsoduro now. The beggar boy was right—I’d stand out, with my fishbelly pale skin against all the deep tans of the fisherboys. People would look, and then someone would notice my hair tucked into the back of my shirt and who knows what would happen then. I wouldn’t even be able to talk my way out of trouble; they’d all accuse me of acting fancy.
If only I could find a way to circle back through the alleys and home again. But I remember the confusing maze of alleys on the map in Cristina Brandolini’s home. I remember how Francesco laughs when he talks about all the times he’s gotten lost. I must stay on this street—I must walk in a straight line, so I don’t get lost. As soon as I’m sure the beggar boy is gone, I’ll go home.
What am I thinking? Here it is, my first venture into the world I’ve wanted so much to explore, and I’m about to run back home. What a fool. There is so much around me—so many marvels. I can’t let one vile boy ruin it all.
I must find strength. Strength and pride. The kind I had when I used to play procession with Laura and Andriana. I remember the words of the woman on the balcony beside me as we looked down on the Piazza San Marco that one wonderful day. “Peace to you, Mark, my evangelist,” I say inside my head. And I’m marching, marching.
Ahiii! I lift my right foot. A large splinter of wood has embedded itself in my sole, smack in the center of my birthmark. I lean against the wall for balance and try to pull it out. The end that protruded breaks off. Now the only way to get it out is to dig at it with a needle. And, Blessed Mary forgive me, but it burns like the fires of eternal damnation.
I want to cry. Who’d think that a thing so insignificant as shoes could ruin an adventure? For want of shoes, I’ve been labeled a beggar and banished from the alley that leads to my home. For want of shoes, I’m now a cripple.
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