Daughter of Venice

by Donna Jo Napoli

  “Modern trials? Criminal trials? You mean like the one we talked about yesterday—the one involving Andrea Donà?”

  “Yes.”

  Messer Cuttlefish observes me for a moment. “Is it the law that interests you, Signorina Mocenigo? Or is it questions of right and wrong?”

  “Aren’t they the same thing?” I ask.

  Messer Cuttlefish smiles—he actually smiles at me. “In theory, yes.” He goes to the shelves of books and walks along, scanning the titles. He opens the glass door, selects a volume, and brings it to the table, setting it before me. “Have you heard of Saint Thomas Aquinas?”

  “No.”

  “He was a pious scholar from the south who lived three centuries ago. Pope Giovanni XXII canonized him on July 18, 1323.” Messer Cuttlefish says the date as easily as he’d report his own birthdate. I feel sure he knows the canonization dates of all the saints, just as he must know the smallest details of their lives. Envy stings me—there’s so much to learn and my tutorial days are almost over. “This is what you should read next,” he says. “It’s not the easiest Latin prose, but the ideas within merit the time spent. It’s incomplete; yet even in its incompleteness, it’s better than anything else you can read on the subject.”

  “Thank you,” I say, swallowing. “I hope I’m up to it.”

  “I wouldn’t give it to you if you weren’t. Start now.” Messer Cuttlefish moves on around the table to Piero.

  I open the book and struggle along. This volume is not one of the small editions; I cannot carry it away with me to read tonight. Just as well. The intricate arguments in it tire me. They seem never ending. I should have asked Messer Cuttlefish for a book simply on trials—that’s what I really care about, after all. I want to know what happens to the accused, from beginning to end.

  I want to know what to expect.

  The rest of the day moves slowly. After the evening meal, I go into the music room for violin practice, but I can’t manage to lift the bow. I stand there and wait. Finally, I put the violin in its case, go down the corridor, and slip into Paolina’s bedchamber.

  Paolina squeals with delight. “Oh, I’m so glad you came. Tell me about your plan.”

  I frown. “Did Laura tell you I had one?”

  “Laura and Andriana won’t talk about you at all. But they didn’t need to. When you went out this morning, I knew it. Even Bortolo guessed.”

  “But he didn’t see me leave. I’m sure of it.”

  “Nevertheless, he knew you were gone. Mother went all over the palazzo calling for you.”

  “She’s a problem,” I say.

  “Who? Mother?”

  “Yes. She insists I be responsible for my morning work, but I can’t do the work, because I have to go out.”

  “So?”

  “So will you do my work for me?” I ask.

  Paolina looks incredulous. “Have you lost your senses? Laura can be taken for you, but I can’t. If I did your work, Mother would see.”

  “If you do my work, at least the work will be done. And I’d have been responsible enough to make sure it got done. When Mother asks, tell her outright that I begged you to do it.”

  “She’ll get angry.”

  “But at me, not you. And it’s the best I can think of right now, Paolina. Will you do it?”

  “Yes. Tell me your plan.”

  “I can’t. I don’t want to involve you. It’s bad enough that I need you to unlock the side door for me.”

  Paolina gasps.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “The lock. You asked me to unlock the door for you and I forgot all about it. I’m so sorry.”

  “Well, that’s all right,” I say. “By chance the door was open today anyway.”

  “I don’t mean today.” Paolina looks confused. “How could I know you wanted me to unlock the door today? You didn’t even tell me you were going out.”

  “But didn’t Laura deliver my message?”

  “Of course she did—that’s the only thing she was willing to say about you. She told me to ‘do the usual’—so I waited for you at the top of the stairs—but Mother shooed me away.”

  “What are you telling me?” I feel sick. “Aren’t you the one who unlocked the door for me the whole month I was working at the printer’s?”

  “No.”

  “Then who?” I put my fingers to my temples and walk in a circle around Paolina, my stomach growing more jumbled with every step. “Could our brothers have been so careless as to leave the door unlocked behind them every day?”

  “Not Piero,” says Paolina. “He’s never careless.”

  I circle her again, my fingers in my hair now, pressing hard. “Who, then?”

  “Don’t brood on it, Donata. You were lucky. But you don’t have to be lucky again. I’ll unlock the door for you tomorrow. Tell me where you’re going.”

  “I can’t. If Mother asks, tell her I didn’t speak about it. And then hush. Please, Paolina. There are dangers you don’t understand. Do what Andriana and Laura do—know as little as you can and say nothing.” I kiss my sister and go back to the bedchamber I share with Laura.

  She’s already in bed, lying there with the oil lamp lit beside the bed and her eyes wide open. Now she rolls on her side so her back is to me.

  I get into my nightdress, kneel at the little prayer stand beside the bed, and say my prayers—extra prayers tonight. Then I blow out the light and climb into bed.

  “Is it dangerous, this plan of yours?” Laura whispers.

  I don’t answer.

  “Will you get beaten up?” she asks.

  “My chin isn’t from anything like that,” I say. “I fell. That’s all.”

  “Do you think your plan will work?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Laura’s silent for a long time, but I know she’s not asleep. “I’m mad at you,” she says at last.

  “I know.”

  “You can’t know. You can’t know how hard it is to try to be good all the time, because you’ve never tried. But I have, Donata. I’ve tried to be as good as I can be my whole life.”

  “You are good, Laura.”

  “I wish I wasn’t. I wish I was mean enough to go to Father and tell him. I wish I didn’t care what happened to any of us, so long as you didn’t get to marry Roberto Priuli.”

  “Don’t wish that, Laura. I’ve been the mean one. Don’t you wish to be mean.”

  Laura says nothing.

  I hear the quiet splash of a gondola oar from outside the window.

  “I’m sorry I’m so mad at you, Donata,” Laura whispers. “I know you didn’t do this on purpose. You’re not really mean. I tell myself that. But I can’t help the anger.” She gropes for my hand behind her back.

  I lace my fingers through hers. “No matter what, Laura, I won’t marry Roberto Priuli.” I won’t marry anyone but the man I love, I think.

  “Don’t promise that, Donata. You don’t know if your plan will work. And if I can’t marry him, then you might as well. At least one of us should have a good life.”

  I can’t answer, my mouth is so full of sadness.

  “Mother and Andriana talked about her wedding this morning.”

  “I’m sorry you had to listen to that,” I manage to say. “I’m sorry for everything. Sleep now, Laura. I love you.”

  Eventually her breathing tells me she sleeps. Eventually, I, too, yield to the night.

  But I’m up at the first hint of dawn, waking from a nightmare. My heart thumps as if it will burst, so loud I fear it will wake Laura.

  Slowly I realize the noise is not my heart at all. It’s coming from the corridor. I open the door.

  Little Maria bumps along the floor on her bottom.

  “Good morning,” I say, closing the door behind me, so that Laura won’t wake.

  “Who are you?” asks Maria.

  “Donata.”

  “That’s what I thought from your chin.” Maria wrinkles her nose. “You never play with me
anymore. You never give me rides.”

  I get on all fours. “Climb on me now. But we mustn’t wake the others, so speak softly.”

  Maria jumps on my back and rides me up and down the corridor. I have to stop frequently to untangle my nightdress, but that doesn’t disturb her joy. She whispers happy little words in my ears. And once, when she leans down to whisper, she lets herself collapse on my back and hugs me around the chest with all her might. Oh, how I’ve missed this.

  I turn at the end of the corridor to make one last, long run, such as it is, when Maria says, “Look, Mother, Donata’s my horsie.”

  Mother stands there with a sleepy smile on her face. “When we go to the country next month, you can ride a real horse. You’re old enough now.”

  “Hooray!” Maria jumps off me and runs to Mother, hugging her around the legs. Then she runs back to me with a wrinkle of worry in her small brow. “But I love riding you, too, Donata. You’re a good horsie.”

  I gather her into my arms and kiss and kiss and kiss her. Thank you, Lord, for a four-year-old sister.

  “And you’ll be a good mother, Donata,” says Mother.

  I wince. “What’s the point of having children and watching the girls go off to convents?”

  “Donata!” Mother looks stricken. My words hurt her as much as hers hurt me.

  But I won’t take them back. Even if she doesn’t feel sorry for her daughters, I feel sorry for us. I feel sorry for every daughter of Venice.

  “Father said Paolina is going to the Convent of San Salvador next year,” says Maria. “What’s a convent, Mother?”

  “It’s a wonderful place, Maria. We’ll talk about it later. And, Donata, you are not to say anything like this ever again.” Mother beckons with her hand. “Maria, come here.”

  I grab Maria and give her one last kiss on the forehead. “I’ll play with you tonight,” I whisper in her ear. “Before I practice violin.”

  She puts her lips to my ear. “All right,” she whispers loudly. Then she runs back to Mother and they go into the bedchamber she shares with Giovanni and the wet nurse Cara.

  I rush to my room and grab the silk cloth. There’s no time to bind my chest now. I have to get downstairs before Mother comes out of Maria’s bedchamber. I race to the stairwell and run down as fast as I can. I go into the storeroom, bind my chest, and change. Then I realize it’s way too early to go outside. Noè has agreed to meet me in our usual spot, but that won’t be for a while yet. So I perch on a giant spool of yarn like a watchful bird.

  This storeroom has a little window high up, because it’s against the alley side of our palazzo, the side away from the church of San Marcuola. Will I be able to hear the church bells? But I can judge by the light, what there is of it. I lean my back against the wall and wait.

  ***

  THE HEAVY CLUNK OF wet wood against stone wakes me. How long have I slept?

  The fisherman talks with Cook, chattering of the goings-on about town.

  What seemed interminable finally ends. I hear someone close the canal gates and secure them. Footsteps ring on the stairs.

  I run out into the alley and pass to the next alley and the next, out to the Rio Terrà di Maddalena. Noè isn’t waiting for me. It’s not terribly late, but it’s late enough. I’ve missed him.

  I set out walking with the big strides of Noè, the strides that should tell anyone who sees me that I’ve got a destination, I’m not a beggar.

  I haven’t gone fifteen meters before the beggar boy’s face is in mine.

  “I told you not to hang around here.”

  “I’m not,” I said. “I’m passing through.” I move on around him.

  He pushes me against the wall. “You can’t pass through here.”

  “I have to,” I argue as firmly as I dare. “This is the path I must take.”

  “I don’t like you,” says the beggar boy. “I don’t like your white skin or your fancy talk. The only good thing about you is that wound on your face.” He smiles suddenly. “Let’s make it last, eh?” With a swipe of his nails, he rakes the scab from my chin.

  “Ahiii!” The blood streams. I press the heel of my hand hard against my chin to stop the flow. “What’ll it take to get you to allow me free passage from here to the Fondamente Nuove?”

  “You’re going all the way over there?”

  “I am.” I blink. Then I add, “If you’ll protect me.”

  “You don’t need his protection,” comes an angry voice. Chiara, the shopkeeper, holds a broom over her head. “This’ll come down on your back if you bother my errand boy again,” she shouts.

  The beggar boy turns and runs.

  “Come on, Donato.” Chiara pulls me by the elbow across the wide street and into her box shop. “I hope you’re not planning on bleeding all over the place every day.”

  “Don’t make me laugh,” I say. “It hurts this chin of mine.”

  She takes my hand away and looks close. “At least it’s not full of dirt this time.” She hands me a clean square of cloth. “Seriously,” she says. “If I hadn’t been standing outside my door, I’d have never seen what was going on. What’d you do to that boy, anyway?”

  “Nothing,” I say, pressing the cloth hard. “He just hates me.”

  “Signora Donà doesn’t like you, either. She said you’re a ruffian.”

  “Because of my chin,” I say.

  “I thought as much.”

  “Need anything delivered to the Fondamente Nuove today?” I ask.

  “No.”

  “I thought as much,” I say.

  We both laugh, though it makes the blood flood more.

  I kiss her hand, as I did yesterday. “Thank you again, kind woman.”

  “God be with you. But just in case, learn to run, young man. With your eyes open this time.”

  I leave at a run, staying close to the wall, dodging in and out of the peddlers and shoppers. Whether it’s the determination in my gait or the gory sight of my chin, I don’t know, but no one else bothers me the whole way.

  I walk into the printer’s, past the two journeymen busy at setting type, down the corridor, and into Noè’s workroom.

  He gets up, shaking his head as Chiara did. “Again?”

  “Don’t say anything funny,” I warn quickly. “When I laugh, it bleeds more.”

  “Have you washed it?”

  “It wasn’t dirty this time.”

  Noè grimaces. “Fool. Stay here while I get water.”

  I go toward his stool.

  “No.” He quickly drags the stool away from his desk. “I’ve been slaving over this page. I can’t take the chance of your blood getting on it.” He puts the stool in the center of the floor and beckons me to sit.

  He’s back fast, with a basin of water, a bar of soap, and a clean cloth. Printers always have soap on hand, though it hardly helps against the stain of ink. “What happened this time?” he asks roughly, but he’s washing my chin as gently as if I were a baby. And his other hand is on my neck, steadying himself so that the hand that tends my wound will press no harder than absolutely necessary.

  My insides stir at his touch. I can hardly stay still. And I’m ashamed that I allow him a touch that is forbidden by his religion. The moment he stops tending my wound, I get up and step away. “There’s no time to talk about it,” I say. I go to the table Noè set up for me yesterday and I take up my work where I left off.

  Noè gives me no arguments.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  LAND ANIMALS

  I’m in my nightdress, having left the disguise down in the storeroom. I come racing up the stairs and burst through my door, only to find Mother waiting in my bedchamber.

  Mother presses her lips together so hard they turn white. “Your chin is raw again,” she says in a thin, high voice.

  “It looks worse than it is,” I say, which is senseless, since I haven’t seen how it looks.

  “You haven’t dressed yet. And you didn’t do your work.”

&nbs
p; “Paolina did it for me, didn’t she?” I say.

  “She began to. But I stopped her. You didn’t keep your promise, Donata.”

  “That’s not fair,” I say.

  “That’s what you said when we talked about Laura the other night. Stop it, Donata. Stop saying everything is unfair!”

  “But if you’d have let Paolina, my work would be done. Then I’d have taken the responsibility for getting it done. That’s the best I can do—and that’s all I promised.”

  “Leading your sister into the path of perdition is not the best you can do, Donata.”

  The way she says that gives me the shivers. “Have you punished her?”

  “She’s confined to her room.”

  “I asked Paolina to help me. She agreed to do my chores. Please, Mother, that’s not something that merits punishment.”

  “She wouldn’t tell me where you were. That merits punishment.”

  “She didn’t know. It’s a secret.”

  “A secret. The way you talk—and what you said this morning about not wanting children because the girls will go to convents—such crazy talk—and in front of little Maria.”

  “I spoke only the truth.”

  “What truth? All of my children are fortunate to be part of a noble tradition. Your children will be fortunate, too.”

  “You said yourself, Mother, that if you had been born a man, you’d have broken with tradition and used bright colors in wool weaving. Your face glowed when you said it.”

  “We were both born women, Donata.”

  “That doesn’t stop us from knowing there are lives better than what tradition affords us.”

  “And there are lives much worse. Look at your life and be grateful.” Mother’s eyes glitter with tears. “I’m at my wits’ end. You’ve been stubborn before, but never like this. And this secret. A secret that involves bloodshed is indecent.”

  How have I reduced my strong mother so severely? I put my hand on her arm to console her. “My chin is an accident. It’s not part of the secret. It won’t happen again.”