Father’s voice lowers to a hush when he speaks of such punishments.
“It’s best not to talk about these things,” I say.
“Don’t be afraid of talk, my friend.” Noè sighs. “It’s one of the few powers that doesn’t cost money. Use it carefully, yes, but use it.”
A group of four boys arrive together, noisy and happy. They fall silent when they see me.
“I’ll be doing some copy work today.” Noè jerks his head toward me and winks. I’m used to Father winking at me—and Francesco did it, too, just yesterday. But for a man outside my family to wink at me is an impertinence. Well, that’s a silly way to feel—this man doesn’t even know I’m a girl. Still, I feel myself blushing. His eyes are on me and there’s something about them that makes him seem handsome. Regal, even, as though he’s somehow superior to me. It must be the effect of the wink. He smiles and whispers loudly. “Her name’s Donata.”
The boys nod and sit on the benches beside me. Noè puts a piece of paper in front of each of them and places the paper that he wrote on where we can all see it. “Get to work.” The boys pick up quills and dip them in the jars, which turn out to be full of black ink. They stare at the paper Noè wrote on, and copy it painstakingly.
Another group of boys arrive. Noè quickly writes on a second sheet of paper. I’m almost sure he’s written the same thing that he wrote on the first paper. It looks very similar, at least. The boys fill up the benches along the first row of tables and Noè puts the sheet of paper where they can see it.
More boys and one girl, yes, there’s another girl here, line up along the benches at the other row of tables. The girl’s not wearing a veil. I wonder if poor girls never wear veils. I smile at her. She sticks her tongue out at me. Then I remember she has no idea I’m a girl—all the people on her bench came in after Noè introduced me. She probably thinks I’m being fresh. I practically gag holding in my laugh.
Noè writes on two more sheets of paper and lays them out as models. He sees me looking at him and comes over. “Get to work,” he says quietly. Then he goes inside.
I dip my quill in the ink and try to copy the first letter. The ink puddles, and the puddle spreads to an ugly black splotch.
The boy beside me looks over. “You have to give the tip of the quill a little shake right as you’re taking it out of the top of the jar.”
I bite my bottom lip. “But I’ve already ruined it.”
“Don’t be a blockhead. These are just handbills. So long as everyone can read them, Noè will accept them. Start over, a little to the right.”
“Thanks.” I dip the quill and shake it. Then I copy the first letter. It doesn’t look much like Noè’s. I glance at my neighbor’s letters. They’re good.
“This is your first time, huh?”
“Yes.”
“Well, you better speed up or you won’t earn anything.” He gives a little humming sound. “I’m the fastest one, so don’t try to keep up with me. Just speed up.”
I copy faster. All morning long. It doesn’t get easier, because there are so many different letters. It doesn’t get better looking, either, because I still make puddles now and then. And my hand cramps sometimes. And my neck aches. And the bench is hard under my knees, because I have to kneel to reach the top of the page. But after a while, I get to the point where I don’t notice my hand or my neck or my knees. I don’t notice anything but the quill and the paper and the letters. There’s a kind of magic to these letters; the work envelops me.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
TROUBLE
It’s eleven-thirty,” Noè announces, standing in the doorway of the courtyard.
The copyists scribble furiously, me included. Then hands start popping up around the tables.
Noè goes to the boys whose hands are up, collecting the finished papers and marking down the number each boy has done in a ledger.
There are five more letters before the sheet I’m working on will be finished. I concentrate on getting the letters right. Sweat drips from my brow onto the paper.
“Time’s up,” says Noè.
Finally, I, too, raise my hand. Noè comes over. “Put the stack to one side,” he says.
I stack my papers.
Noè counts my sheets and takes them away.
A boy brings a half-finished sheet to my neighbor. They agree to split the payment for this sheet, and my neighbor works like a fiend, finishing a whole line in a few minutes. I can’t believe how fast he forms the letters.
A boy goes around collecting the jars of ink and putting them back in the box. Two others collect the quills and rinse them in a bowl of water before replacing them in the box.
My neighbor scribbles furiously.
Noè hands out brooms and buckets with lids on them. He picks up his ledger and checks it. “All right, we have fourteen of you and sixty-six papers, counting the one Emilio is finishing right now. If you work in pairs, that means three pairs can put up ten handbills, and four pairs can only put up nine.”
“What about the new guy?” asks the boy sitting beside the girl. “He makes fifteen of us.”
“That’s Donata. She doesn’t count.”
“A girl?” the girl says.
“Done!” shouts Emilio. He gets up and hands the finished sheet to Noè. Then he looks at me. “I knew you were odd.”
“Girls aren’t odd,” says the girl. “And Donata should get to put up handbills, too.”
I’d love to put up handbills. I want to do everything the copyists do. But my morning is past. “I have to be home by midday.”
“See?” says Noè. “That’s why I said she doesn’t count. So that settles it. Which pairs want ten handbills?”
I expect a fight to break out. After all, these copyists are poor, and work is paid by the piece. So the pairs who put up more handbills will get more pay. I know that because that’s how all the guilds work in Venice. It’s the only fair way, according to Father. The government declares what the price of each unit of work will be. Then the guilds pay their members for piecework. I stay seated on the bench, to avoid the fray.
But the boys negotiate reasonably. Those who got to put up more handbills yesterday give way to the others. I shouldn’t be surprised. That’s the way people ought to work things out. It’s the way my brothers and sisters work things out. I’m ashamed of myself for thinking that because these copyists are poor, they’d act badly.
I think back to the beggar boy who spat on me yesterday. And the other beggar boy who followed me this morning. I was outside their group, and they were mean to me. But maybe among the beggar boys, within the group, there’s an understanding of how to treat each other. Sort of like an unofficial beggar-boys’ guild.
The others run off with buckets and brooms and handbills.
“You can get on home now,” says Noè. “It’s a quarter to twelve. Hurry.”
I stand up slowly. “See you tomorrow.”
“Yup.” Noè goes inside.
I follow him into the building. He goes into a room off the corridor. I stop in the doorway of that room and watch him.
He looks up at me. “Is something wrong?”
A lot is wrong. But I don’t want to tell him. “Aren’t you going back to the Ghetto for lunch?”
Noè looks at me silently. “You don’t know how to get home from here, do you?”
I smile sheepishly. I hate needing help like this. “Not really.”
“I guess I’m hungry, after all.” He closes the lid on his ink jar and washes his quill.
“Thanks, Noè.”
“Don’t mention it.”
We go back quickly, through alleys that are more crowded now than this morning. When we get to the Rio Noale, I speak up. “Noè, if it’s all the same to you, could we go back by way of the Rio Terrà di Maddalena?”
“It’s not all the same.” Noè sticks his tongue in his cheek again.
“Do you have a toothache?”
He smiles. “Now who’s trying to fig
ure out about people?”
“I asked a direct question. That’s different from you trying to trick me.”
“All right. Yes, my tooth hurts. Now you answer a direct question. Why do you want to go to the Rio Terrà di Maddalena?”
What’s the point of not answering? “It’s near my home,” I say at last.
“So you want me to go out of my way and spend more time going home so that you can spend less time, is that it?”
“No, that’s not it at all. Don’t make me sound like a spoiled brat.”
“So what is it?” asks Noè.
“There are beggar boys on the paths between the Ghetto and my home. They think I want to beg there, and it’s their territory, and they, well, they aren’t very nice.”
Noè smiles and turns down an alley. “You know, the master’s never going to guess you’re really a boy.”
“And what’s that supposed to mean?”
“Sometimes you sound like a girl. And you’re really cute, too. Sexy.” He holds up a hand with fingers spread and wrist tilted, like a dainty girl, and he wiggles his hips for a few steps. “They aren’t very nice,” he says in a high falsetto, mimicking me.
“You aren’t very nice,” I snap.
He laughs and turns down another alley. “And you aren’t very fast at your letters. I expected a lot more handbills out of you, given that you have an education.”
“I’m supposed to be a girl, right? I have to act the part.”
“Some girls have an education.”
Really? I thought Laura and I were special—I thought we were the only girls other than courtesans who were about to be allowed into a tutorial. But, oh, could Noè mean courtesans? I take his arm. “Ones you know?”
“I’m in a havurah—a study group—that includes girls. The new choral master, Leon Modena—may God his Rock protect him and grant him long life—started it. He says men and women can study together.”
I remember the chorus in the Ghetto singing in Hebrew. How lucky the girls in Noè’s study group are, to be able to learn that.
Noè looks at my hand on his arm. “But that doesn’t mean men and women can touch each other.” He carefully lifts my hand off him. “So be sure not to touch me at the printer’s, where they think you’re a girl.”
I step back, alarmed. “Is this a Jewish rule, like with the spoons?”
“Not exactly the same, but yes.”
Oh, no. “What would happen to you if a girl touched you?”
“Don’t get so upset.” Noè smiles at me and walks again. “I wouldn’t die. It’s just not proper. In any case, go ahead and act like you’re struggling with the letters. But don’t be too slow.”
I rub the back of my neck. “If I don’t do enough work by the end of the month to pay for the zoccoli, then I’ll just work longer. I’ll work till you tell me we’re even.”
Noè looks at me with approval. “D’accordo—agreed. Here we are.”
The alley opens on the Rio Terrà di Maddalena. And I know exactly where we are. My own alley lies just ahead on the other side of the wide road. “Thank you. I’ll stop here.”
He lifts his eyebrows. “So you’re not going to let me see which palazzo you disappear into?”
“No.”
He smiles. “All right. And tonight do this.” He rolls his head to the side, the back, the other side, and front in a big circle. “Five times in one direction, and five times in the other. That’s the only way to avoid a sore neck.”
“My neck’s all right.”
“I saw you rubbing it. And flex your fingers. Like this.” He opens and closes both hands. “One hundred times, as fast as you can. That avoids a sore hand.”
“All right,” I say.
“I’ll meet you here tomorrow morning at seven sharp.”
“You don’t have to do that,” I say, though my heart leaps at the offer.
“Beggar boys start work even earlier than copyists.” Noè gives a wave and walks off. He’s absorbed by the crowd in an instant.
At the first break in traffic, I cross to the other side and wend my way to our alley. I run now.
Francesco and Piero and Antonio and Vincenzo come into the alley right behind me. They’re early.
Oh, Lord, help me. I don’t dare look over my shoulder. There are other doors on this alley, but I can’t just walk into one of them.
I clack one zoccolo hard on the stone ground and move to the wall, squatting into a ball, as though there’s something wrong with my zoccolo and I’m trying to fix it.
My brothers pass by without so much as a pause in their conversation. I wait for them to go into our palazzo before I straighten up and run to the door. I hesitate. The door is heavy and thick, and I can’t hear what’s happening on the other side. But unless they stopped for some strange reason, they should be going up the stairwell by now.
I try the door; it’s locked.
Please, Paolina. Remember your promise. I lean my forehead against the door.
In a little while, I think I hear something. I race away, back along the alley. But when no one comes out our door, I return and try the latch again. It opens. There is not much in this world better than a loyal sister.
I race to the storeroom, strip, hide my disguise, put on my nightdress, and run up the stairwell on tiptoe. Paolina waits at the doorway to the piano nobile. She looks both ways up and down the corridor, then she nods. I zip past her into the bedchamber.
A moment later, Laura comes in, and I dress exactly like her. Then we go out into the corridor.
Paolina pushes us back into the room. “Pinch your cheeks,” she says, pointing to Laura. “Otherwise one of you has redder cheeks than the other.”
I put my hands to my cheeks. “Oh, no. I sat in the sun all morning.”
Laura puts her hand to her mouth and looks at me. “This is awful. You’ve got a sunburn.”
“It’s just a little sunburn,” says Paolina. “If you keep pinching yourself, Laura, you’ll look the same.” She frowns. “Except for Donata’s hands.”
The fisherboy’s shirt has long, loose sleeves, so my arms are white. But the backs of my hands are slightly red.
“I’ll keep my hands in my lap as much as I can,” I say.
“I’ll do the same,” says Laura. “I want to, anyway. I’m so tired. Mother insisted we make headway on the giant spools of yarn. She’s worried they won’t be finished before we leave for the summer. She demanded ten bobbins each from you and me and Paolina. I filled all the bobbins you were supposed to fill, then I had to work on my share. And though I worked as fast as I could, I didn’t finish. My fingers hurt from holding the thread so tight.”
“I’m sorry.” I kiss Laura on both cheeks. “Thank you.”
“You’d better have good stories to tell,” says Laura.
“I do. And I still have your brooch.” I take it out of my pocket.
“It’s so pretty.” Paolina leans over my hand, her lips forming a perfect circle.
“Here,” says Laura. She hands the brooch to Paolina. “This is for you.”
“Do you mean it?” Paolina holds the brooch up to the light from the window. “I love it.”
“Good. I can’t wear it anyway.”
“Why not?” asks Paolina.
“Donata lost hers.”
“You always wear the same jewelry, the same everything,” says Paolina. “Except for fisherboy’s clothes.” She laughs. “We better get to lunch.”
We walk down the corridor in a line and take our places at the table. Everyone talks about their morning. Nicola practically bursts with pride because he mastered a hoop and stick game that boys play in the campi. I’ve never played it, but I’ve seen it a few times in the campo in front of San Marcuola. It’s hard, I think. We all congratulate him and tell him how big he’s getting. Bortolo pipes up and takes credit for teaching Nicola the game.
Finally, Father comes in, late and clearly upset. “Have you seen this?” He’s holding a sheet of pape
r.
A handbill.
I try to see the lettering, but my older brothers are passing it around and no one passes it to me. At last it rests in Antonio’s hands and I crane my neck to get a better look. I was right: It’s one of the handbills we made this morning.
“What’s it say?” I ask.
“It says we’ve got trouble,” says Francesco.
It can’t say merely that. There are so many words on the sheet.
“What are you going to do, Father?” asks Piero.
“We’re calling a meeting of the heads of all the guilds related to the wool industry this afternoon to discuss their petition.”
“Whose petition?” I ask.
“The wool combers are getting ready to petition the Senate for a raise in their piece rates,” says Father. “They put their arguments on handbills all over the Merceria.”
“I bet they’ll get the raise, too,” says Piero. “Their arguments are good. The price of combs has gone from twelve lire to thirty lire. Their costs have gone up and their pay hasn’t.”
I remember Mother talking about the wool industry. She talked about the beaters and the carders and the combers and the spinners and the weavers—in that order, the order in which the wool passes hands. “If the cost of combed wool goes up,” I say, “what will the spinners do?”
Everyone looks at me. I’ve never before entered mealtime business talk like this. Mother’s and Father’s faces are shocked. But I haven’t said anything stupid. It’s not fair for them to be shocked merely by the fact that I spoke up.
“Donata’s right,” says Antonio at last, “the spinners will be hurt first.”
I look at my brother with love. Good old Antonio.
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