Daughter of Venice

by Donna Jo Napoli

  “But it did happen again. And the other night you burned yourself with wax.”

  “The candle fell, Mother. I told you that.”

  Mother hugs herself, as she did yesterday morning. “Cara and Aunt Angela and I searched the palazzo. Where were you?”

  “I didn’t want to be found, Mother.”

  “We looked in closets, under beds, on balconies.”

  “I didn’t stay in a single place.”

  “Were you . . .” Mother grimaces in fear and sucks air in through her clenched teeth. “Were you outside the palazzo?”

  “Do I look as though I went outside? I’d never go outside in my nightdress, Mother.”

  Mother blinks and a tear escapes. It runs down the side of her long nose. “Do you swear before the Lord?”

  My tongue feels too thick to move. But I’m swearing that I didn’t go outside in my nightdress. That’s what I’m swearing, no matter what Mother thinks I’m swearing. “I do.”

  “Thank the Lord for that at least.” Mother brushes away the tear. “Would you rather I ask your father to talk with you?”

  “No. Please, Mother. I have nothing to say.”

  “Of course you do.” She drops her arms. “Hiding in your nightdress, tearing your chin open, burning your arm. Oh, Donata, you’re beside yourself. You’re one of those girls who . . .”

  “Who what? What girls, Mother?”

  She heaves a sigh. “Speak your mind, Donata. Ask about what troubles you.”

  “The questions that trouble me are not ones you can answer.”

  Tears well in her eyes again. “Do you want to talk with a priest, then? Don Zuanne could be fetched immediately.”

  I can see that she won’t give up. “Not a priest, no, Mother. But if you insist, I’ll talk with the tutor.”

  “Messer Zonico? I never heard of such a thing—a girl turning to a tutor for counsel.”

  “Boys turn to tutors for counsel.”

  Mother makes a tsking noise and I can see she wants to snap at me for saying that. But then she seems to think better of it. “Messer Zonico is sensible.” She rubs my hands now, though the day is hot already. “I’ll tell him to take you aside this afternoon for a private talk. For now, stay in your room.”

  The air in the corridor was full of the odor of roasted lamb when I came up the stairs. Now it curls in under my door. “I haven’t eaten anything yet today, Mother.”

  Mother’s eyes widen. “You’re not eating?” She puts her hand over her mouth; then she shakes her head slowly. “Perhaps an empty stomach can help clear the brain.”

  “I’ll accept that,” I say. “But please let Paolina eat with the family. I swear she doesn’t know my secret. No one does.”

  “Don’t use your sister ever again, Donata. It can lead to nothing but problems for both of you.” She leaves.

  I watch the closed door, half-expectant. But none of my sisters comes in to talk with me.

  I look briefly in the mirror. My chin is a mess. My hair falls in tangles. I have the air of a madwoman. No wonder Mother is so frightened for me. I dress slowly.

  And now it hits me: Paolina was confined to her room. And both Father and the boys came in before me. Surely one of them must have thought to lock the door behind them. So who unlocked it for me?

  Who in this palazzo knows my comings and goings? Bortolo, perhaps. But is he reliable enough to come down and unlock the door at just the right time every day?

  I can’t figure this one out. And, surely, whoever it is means me no harm, or harm would have come already.

  I work on my hair, combing loose every last knot. I wrap my hair with one of my white veils, so that my face and shoulders are free of locks. The young woman in the mirror now seems subdued, though the telltale wound on the chin can’t be ignored. I go out on the balcony.

  The Canal Grande is almost empty. No one works during the midday mealtime. The water is green as precious stone. It laps sweetly at the fondamenta on the far side.

  Venice is deceptive when the canals are empty. It seems the perfect city, the Serene Republic, completely and lastingly peaceful and innocuous. But Noè and I talked today about how far from innocuous it is. Violations of voting procedures have been increasing, as has the harshness of punishments for offenders. The copyists’ handbills today detailed those punishments.

  Now if a noble is found guilty of seeking to influence votes to advance the interests of a foreign lord, he will be excluded from offices and commands for ten years, and he will pay a fine of 500 ducats. A citizen will likewise be excluded from office, though he cannot hold commands in any case, and he’ll pay 200 ducats. And a member of the people, who has no voting rights anyway, will be exiled for ten years and pay 100 ducats.

  All of this does not seem so terrible. How can a republic survive if the voting process is not protected against such assaults, after all?

  But there is something awful. The handbills list one more proclamation: If someone knows of a voting wrongdoing and does not report it, his right hand will be cut off.

  Noè says this barbaric punishment proves Venice has not risen far from its Byzantine past. He predicts that corruption will persist, and, with no benefit whatsoever, we will become a sorry republic in which each member acts like a watchdog against his neighbor.

  I said nothing. The difficulty of creating a society in which all can flourish seems greater now than I would have believed possible a couple of months ago. So many people, with so many needs. Poor people. Women. In some ways Venice is already a sorry republic.

  I have the urge to jump into the Canal Grande and swim away. Forever.

  My stomach growls in hunger. Mother told me to stay here, but what she really meant is that I should be excluded from the midday meal. She won’t care if I go to the library. I open my door.

  Giò Giò stands in the corridor. He looks at me.

  “Why aren’t you serving the meal?” I ask.

  “Your mother told me to keep an eye on you.”

  A chaperone within the house. But I can’t blame Mother—she’s right. “I’m going to the library.”

  Giò Giò follows me down the stairs, but he stays in the hall, while I go inside and sit at the long study table.

  I open the volume by Saint Thomas Aquinas and read. The arguments seem less tedious today. There’s a strange attraction about the clean way they proceed, their tightness. I read with growing interest.

  At some point Messer Zonico comes in. He doesn’t utter a greeting. Instead, he lays a large book on the little wheeled table and flips through the pages. I know his silence is not out of any disrespect, but, to the contrary, out of deep respect for the fact that I am reading this work of theology. And I realize that in my head I have called him by his rightful name for the first time since that very first lesson. I smile to myself and keep reading.

  When my brothers come in, we move to the cluster of chairs by the window and the lesson begins. It is a continuation of yesterday’s lesson, the nature of life on land. Messer Zonico goes on and on about the habits and life cycles of wild creatures that do not live in Venice proper. Our mainland summer home allows us just “a bit of countryside,” as Father says. Mother has already starting packing our things to go there, muttering little complaints about how the heat here is becoming unbearable. Most of my knowledge of land animals comes from our visits to that country house. I’ve seen goats there, and rabbits, squirrels, foxes, badgers, ferrets. I’ve chased snakes and frogs through the grasses by the little lake. I’ve climbed trees and looked out on hillsides covered with flocks of sheep. And, of course, we ride horseback—a great pleasure. Other than that, land animals are known to me in the form of food or leather or wool.

  And of course, Venice bursts with cats. And there are rats, big and fat.

  I wonder if the beggar boy who torments me has ever had the privilege of seeing a fox.

  And now that I think about our summer home, I realize I’ve never seen beggar boys from our coach as we
ride along. But surely there are poor people in the country, too.

  Messer Zonico solicits questions now.

  “What do poor people on the mainland do?” I ask.

  Messer Zonico looks at me blank-faced.

  “What’s the matter with you, Donata?” asks Vincenzo. “Haven’t you been listening?”

  “People are land animals,” I say in defense, though I know my question is misplaced. “Poor people in Venice are greengrocers and ribbon makers and box makers and cat castrators and servants and thieves and beggars and so many things. What are poor people on the mainland?”

  “They are dirt farmers,” says Francesco. “And sharecroppers and day laborers.”

  “They dig irrigation ditches and serve as stable boys and lackeys,” says Piero.

  “Why should you care?” asks Vincenzo.

  “We should all care,” says Antonio.

  “Exactly,” says Messer Zonico. “Life is life, whatever its quality. And human life is sacred.” He pulls up a chair and sits in front of us. “Everywhere you go, some poor people work, scrabbling to make a livable life, and some poor people struggle in misery or prey upon the more fortunate.”

  “Tell us about the habits of poor people,” I say, thinking about my friend Chiara and the copyists Giuseppe and Rosaria and Emilio. “Where they live, what they eat. Tell us about their life cycle.”

  “I don’t want to hear this,” says Francesco. “We have little to do with poor people.”

  “On the contrary, we deal with poor people every day,” I say. “Consider how much our family talks about the combers’ petition for a raise. Why should any one of us care about whether it costs one soldo or two and a half to adjust the teeth of a comb? A soldo is worth so little to us. Nothing. But the people who made those leggings you wear count their soldi. As do the people who made the glass in this window and those who fitted it in place, and the people who cut down the wood for that shelf and those who carved it, and the people who printed the books that surround us and those who bound them. Oh, yes, we build our life on the backs of poor people.” I have risen at some point during this stream of words and my hands have been jabbing at the air, pointing here and there about the room.

  My brothers stare.

  I sink into my seat.

  “Be grateful we do,” says Francesco at last. He gets up and goes to the long study table. “I’m doing my own work now.”

  “Me too,” says Piero. He goes to the study table.

  Vincenzo follows.

  Antonio and I remain with our tutor.

  “Some live in tenements right beside the rest of us,” says Messer Zonico in a low voice. “But some live in wooden sheds on the edges of the city. If they’re lucky, a family occupies a single floor. If they’re not, they might crowd into a single room.”

  “A dark room,” I say.

  “I’ve never been inside a home of the poorest people,” says Messer Zonico. “But I imagine that’s right. And most of the poor die young.”

  “Almost half the people of Venice die before reaching the age of twenty-one,” I say. “Father talked about that.”

  “Yes,” says Messer Zonico. “But if you take out the nobles and citizens, if you look only at the poor people, you find that sixty percent of them never reach adulthood. They have many babies, but few live.”

  “Why?” I ask. “Why do the babies die?”

  “Sickness, lack of food.” Messer Zonico lifts his hands toward us, as though apologizing. “The sorghum we use for making brooms—do you know it? The state doesn’t even tax it because it’s considered inedible. But some poor make their bread from it. And bread is the mainstay of their diet.”

  “Mother sometimes takes hot bread and puts it on our chests inside our clothes in winter,” I say. “To give us a special warm feeling—so we’re cozy. Bread made from wheat flour. When the bread grows cold, we throw it out.” I clench my teeth as I remember.

  “We should be ashamed,” says Antonio so softly I can barely hear him.

  “The very worst part of poverty, however, is probably not any of these physical discomforts.” Messer Zonico looks right at me now. “It’s the monotony. They have no education. We can take respite in our books, in our philosophy and theology. Our spirits can take flight no matter what happens to our bodies. The poor have none of this.”

  Nor would I, I think, if I hadn’t fallen into this tutorial almost by accident, as it were.

  “Antonio,” says Messer Zonico. “You can go to your individual study now.”

  Antonio goes to the study table.

  “Your mother has asked me to talk with you,” says Messer Zonico to me. “She says something troubles you.”

  “Many things trouble me.”

  “I can see that. And rightfully, Signorina Mocenigo. Rightfully. But your mother says there is something else—a secret.”

  “Many things are secret,” I say. “Before I studied with you, all the things you’ve taught me were secret so far as I was concerned. They were kept from me.”

  Messer Zonico takes off his eyeglasses. He rubs his eyelids with the thumb and forefinger of his right hand. Without opening his eyes, he says, “Your mother fears you have taken up a practice that has, unfortunately, become popular among certain young women these days.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about. I don’t know what’s popular among young women. I haven’t spent time with any of my old friends for months.”

  “She thinks you’ve entered a period of self-flagellation,” he says.

  “What does that mean?”

  “She thinks you close yourself away from light and food and all comfort—that you harm yourself, to atone for some real or imagined transgression. Young women do that sometimes—particularly when they believe they have received a gift they don’t merit . . .” He pauses. “Such as an unexpected betrothal.”

  “Mother is wrong,” I say. “I don’t consider the betrothal a gift I don’t merit. Anyone merits getting married. Marriage should not be reserved for the privileged few.” I didn’t know how strongly I believed this until now, as the words come out of my mouth.

  Messer Zonico looks at me and his eyes seem huge and vague. “Then perhaps something else weighs on you, something else makes you punish yourself. You are about to enter into a noble marriage, but with a family of more modest means. Your outburst earlier—which I do not disparage in the least—indeed, we all benefited from hearing it—your outburst indicates a serious concern about economic matters. Signora Mocenigo, do you feel guilty for your wealth?”

  “I don’t know,” I say honestly. “I’ve never asked myself that question. But the answer is not relevant to my secret, Messer Zonico, for I do not practice self-flagellation.”

  “I see.” Messer Zonico puts together lightly the tips of the fingers of both his hands. He looks at me imploringly. “Whatever it is you do—whatever secret—can you at least tell me why you’ve been doing it?”

  “I’m trying to do the right thing.”

  Messer Zonico’s chest rises and falls in deep breaths. He seems to struggle with my answer. He looks pitiful.

  Why do I make so many problems for so many people? Why can’t I simply be like Laura, naturally good?

  “The right thing in general, or in particular?” he asks.

  “If one does the former, how can one not do the latter?” I say.

  “Quite right. But I cannot return to your mother with no answers,” says Messer Zonico. “I must tell her something. If I tell her that you are concerned with questions of right and wrong—with questions of theology—would that be a deception?”

  Questions of theology. Questions of and for God. “No,” I answer.

  He puts his eyeglasses back on. “Then that is what I shall say. Do you want to return to your reading now?”

  I get up and go to the long table and take up reading where I left off. It’s hard to concentrate after the discussion of tutorial today. But gradually the words on the page comm
and my attention. I dig deeper and deeper into the beauty of Saint Thomas Aquinas’ arguments for the existence of our dear Lord.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  FINISHING WORK

  I wake to a noise in the corridor, like yesterday. Little Maria? I open the door stealthily.

  Cara sits in a chair directly across from my bedchamber. She’s looking around and tapping her feet, probably to try to keep herself awake. Has she been out there all night? Or did Giò Giò take the first shift? When Cara finally turns her head to me, her mouth opens uncertainly.

  “Are you my prison guard?” I ask, which isn’t totally kind, since I know that Cara isn’t to blame. She’s a slow woman, but an earnest one. I’m immediately ashamed of myself.

  But the offense flies past Cara’s unsuspecting nature. She smiles her usual smile, just a bit more weary than normal. “The mistress told me to alert her when you came out of your bedchamber.”

  I return her smile and step into the corridor. “You had better do so, then.”

  Cara gets up heavily and walks up the corridor.

  I am already on the stairs, taking them at breakneck speed, by the time I hear her knuckles rap on Mother and Father’s bedchamber door. I get over to the outer edge of the stairwell and run as close to the wall as I can, so no one looking down from above will see me.

  “Donata!” Mother shouts. “Where are you? Did she go up or down, Cara? Which way?”

  Bortolo and Nicola are playing already in their corridor. They both see me coming down.

  I put my finger to my mouth in the hush sign and keep running.

  Nicola opens his mouth to greet me, but Bortolo slaps his hand over Nicola’s mouth and wrestles him to the floor. They roll like kittens as I race past and down the last flight. I duck into the storeroom.

  I’m afraid to stay here, though, even for the few minutes it takes to dress. Bortolo won’t say he saw me. But Nicola probably will. He’s never yet kept a secret. And I can hear Mother’s shouts. Everyone will be awake soon.

  I climb over the large wool spool, grab my fisherboy’s clothes, and go out the palazzo door.

  I’m in the alley in my nightdress—something unthinkable only yesterday. My arms feel chilled, though the morning is already warm. I jam the fisherboy’s clothes underneath the nightdress. I have to go left, because on my right the alley ends at the Canal Grande. And I have to go fast. One alley, the next, the next.