Daughter of Venice

by Donna Jo Napoli

  Finally the Merceria opens onto the Canal Grande. I wave my hands over my head, calling to a gondola. It passes.

  I walk along the water in the direction of my home, but the fondamenta stops at the site of the old Rialto bridge.

  Another gondola comes along. I shout and jump in place, waving like a maniac.

  The gondola comes to me.

  I climb in fast. “The Palazzo Mocenigo,” I say.

  “Do you have the fare?”

  I hand him my last soldo.

  And I sit. What’s the point of pretending to be a boy anymore? I’m afraid to stand, anyway. The water looks black at night. And the Canal Grande is deep.

  It doesn’t take long to round the curve and make our way to my palazzo. “The alley beside it will do,” I say.

  The gondoliere lets me off.

  I go to the side door. It’s locked, of course.

  I could wake them—after all, there’s nothing they can do to me now that will be worse than what will happen tomorrow.

  But I’m dressed in fisherboy’s clothes.

  With Bortolo’s bareta in my hands.

  Paolina and Bortolo would get in trouble.

  How could I have failed to think of this?

  I sit with my back pressed against the door and I laugh at what a sad and stupid person I am. I have failed to think about anything after my Great Plan. Now so many thoughts come. I have no idea what Father will do to me. But it hardly matters, for there is no future I could have had that wouldn’t have meant great loss.

  I have known freedom. True freedom. Dressed in these fisherboy’s clothes, I have enjoyed the license of observing the world firsthand. And sitting in Messer Zonico’s tutorial, I have read and argued. I cannot bear the thought of losing all that. But it’s already lost. My laughter turns to sobs. Stupid, wretched me. There is no place in Venice for a girl like me. I might as well run away—banish myself.

  The door opens and I barely manage to keep myself from falling onto my back.

  “Come in, Donata.”

  “Uncle Umberto? What are you doing here?”

  “I’ve been waiting for you. Making sure the lock is open has become a tiring job.”

  I jump up and into his arms.

  He holds me tight.

  “So you’re the one.” The risk Uncle Umberto has been running hits me hard. He’s Mother’s brother, not Father’s. He lives with us on Father’s charity. “Father would be outraged if he found out,” I whisper.

  “No one suspects me. Most of the time they don’t notice I’m around. It’s as though they can’t see me—as though they’re the blind ones.” He reaches past me and secures the latch.

  “Well, you won’t have to open the latch for me anymore. I’m through going out.”

  “Ah.” Uncle Umberto touches the bareta on my head. “I’m glad it ended well, with you safe and sound.”

  His voice tells me he was worried. And still he didn’t give me away. “Why did you help me?”

  “You needed adventures. Later on you can remember them. As I remember mine.”

  My mouth opens, but I don’t let the sound of the gasp out. Uncle Umberto wouldn’t want me to feel sorry for him. “Thank you for keeping my secret.”

  “I’ve had a lot of practice. Everyone thinks because I can’t see them, I don’t know what they’re doing, so they do it right in front of me.” He laughs. “There are more secrets in this family than you can guess.”

  “And you know them all?” I say with wonder.

  “No, I’m sure I don’t. But I know plenty.”

  “And you help everyone without their knowing?”

  “Only some people,” says Uncle Umberto.

  “Thank you for helping me.” I kiss his cheeks. “Thank you.”

  “Hush now. Get upstairs to bed.”

  I take off my zoccoli and run up the stairs, straight to Laura’s and my bedchamber and out to the balcony. I strip and throw my clothes into the water. They drift on the surface, slowly sinking. I throw my zoccoli on top of them.

  And the boy Donato is gone.

  “What are you doing?”

  I turn around.

  Mother rushes past me to the balcony. “What did you throw in the canal?”

  “My clothes.”

  “Your clothes? Why?”

  Everything is happening too fast. I thought I wouldn’t have to face questions till morning. I look toward the bed with longing.

  “Where have you been?”

  “Out doing the right thing.”

  “Outside the palazzo?”

  “Yes,” I say.

  “Ahi!” she cries, as though she’s been wounded.

  Laura sits up in bed with a start, her nightdress a gray bird in the dark of the room. I want to be a bird with her. I want to fly somewhere quiet and safe, and cuddle against her in a nest.

  “Get something on,” says Mother. “Now.”

  I grab my old nightdress from the bottom of the closet. It’s barely over my head when Mother pulls me by the arm, out into the corridor and down to the dining hall, where Father sits at the table with his head in his hands.

  He looks up at me.

  I straighten my nightdress and gather my courage.

  “Where were you, Daughter?”

  I don’t answer.

  “She was outside,” says Mother. “Outside, in the night. Our daughter. Alone in the night.” She sounds as frightened as I feel. “And she threw her clothes off the balcony into the water.”

  Father stands. “Were you outside the palazzo for the past three days?”

  My knees threaten to give way. I grip the table edge. “Yes, Father.”

  “You lied to me,” says Mother in a voice weak with pain.

  “I swore only that I hadn’t gone out in my nightdress, and I hadn’t, Mother.”

  “You knew what I was asking, Donata.”

  “What have you been doing?” says Father, with naked fury.

  “I went out to see the city.” They’re looking at me with pained surprise. “It’s my city, too.” I look from one to the other of them. “My Venice. You both knew it so well by the time you were my age. Mother should understand. Someone should understand.”

  Father’s face is aghast. “You must tell me. Have you done anything to put your betrothal in jeopardy?”

  I look at him in silence.

  Mother bursts into sobs.

  “Speak!” he shouts.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  EVIDENCE

  Laura comes into the bedchamber. “Come, Donata.”

  “So you’re talking to me again?”

  She nods. “You look so pathetic, how could I not? And, anyway, I missed you.”

  I get off the bed and hug Laura.

  “Father says you’re to come to the midday meal.”

  “Did he tell you himself?” I ask.

  “No. Mother told me.”

  “Then you don’t know what he looked like,” I say.

  Laura furrows her brow. “What are you talking about?”

  “You don’t know whether he was wild with anger or not. You don’t know why he wants me at the table. That’s what I mean.”

  “Their anger can’t have grown, Donata. Last night was the worst of it, I’m sure.”

  I’m equally sure last night was just the beginning. Last night they were angry because they’d been half-crazed with fear at my absence, and they were angry because I wouldn’t tell them anything about where I’d been, and they were angry because they feared my behavior would ruin the marriage plans. But I persisted in saying I’d done the right thing, and finally their questions stopped and even Father’s anger seemed to wane. Perhaps because they wanted so much to believe me; perhaps because they were worn down. But today is a new day, with new energies, and new problems. Now follows the denunciation and, undoubtedly, a tempest.

  Beyond that, I have no idea what’s to become of me.

  Laura takes my hand. “Come to the table.”

/>   “If you’ll keep holding my hand. No matter what Father says, keep holding my hand.”

  Laura’s fingers tighten around mine. “I will.” She reaches for the doorknob.

  I pull back. “I’m afraid, Laura.”

  “Pretend you’re brave. March,” says Laura. “Peace to you, Mark, my evangelist.”

  I stare at her, astonished.

  “Don’t look at me like you don’t know what I’m talking about. You’re the one who’s always saying that.”

  “Laura, oh, Laura, those words are exactly the words on the banner of Venice. But on the banner, it’s in Latin.” I can’t believe I didn’t realize that before. I wrote those words three times in each of the five copies of the boy’s play over the last three days—but I simply copied the Latin, I didn’t translate it in my head.

  Laura puts her hands on her hips and looks at me doubtfully. “Come on, Donata, how can words you made up be the words of Venice’s banner?”

  “I didn’t make them up. The woman said them—the woman who sat beside me on the balcony at the festival in Piazza San Marco.” I let out a little laugh. “She was translating. ‘Pax tibi, Marce, evangelista meus.’ Don’t you see? She knew Latin. She was a noble—she wasn’t a courtesan, and, still, she was educated.”

  “What on earth are you talking about?” asks Laura.

  “Maybe my future.” I may actually have a future, if I can get past this denunciation in one piece. I kiss Laura. “Let’s go.”

  Laura opens the door.

  Andriana and Paolina stand in the corridor. They arrange themselves in front and to the other side of me, instinctively protecting me. I’ve been so lucky to grow up in this family. So very lucky. We move down the corridor like a formal procession in Piazza San Marco, and I chant under my breath, “Pax tibi, Marce, evangelista meus.”

  We take our seats. Laura stays beside me, holding my hand. True to her word.

  No sooner have I sat than Father speaks. “This morning the Council found a denunciation in a bocca di leone.” He looks right at me.

  I feel Laura’s hand tense up. I look around the table. My older brothers know; their faces are loquacious. Uncle Umberto knows; his face is guarded. Mother knows, too. The rest keep their eyes on Father. Even the little ones look grave, alerted by the tone of Father’s voice.

  Now it all begins. Father will take me before the tribunal.

  And Laura will marry Roberto Priuli.

  It is a good plan. I made this happen. I wanted this. Still, my teeth clench so hard the bones in my head hurt.

  Father reads the denunciation aloud in Latin, then translates into Venetian.

  When he finishes, Laura gives a little shriek.

  I’m shaking now. I know everyone’s eyes are on me, but I can’t stop shaking.

  Laura closes my hand in both hers.

  “Who signed it?” asks Andriana. Her boldness in speaking first after such an announcement clearly surprises everyone. Her face is fierce with loyalty. I have never loved her more.

  “It’s anonymous.”

  “The coward,” says Laura.

  “Precisely,” says Father. “The Council of Ten pays no attention to anonymous denunciations.”

  I gasp. How could they pay no attention? No one told me a denunciation had to be signed. No no no! All this for naught!

  Father looks at me hard. “But the fact that the denunciation is anonymous doesn’t mean it is false.”

  I blink in confusion.

  “Have you anything to say to this charge, Donata?”

  “I am a good Catholic, Father.”

  Father puts his hand to his head in a gesture of such wrenching relief, I want to cry for the anguish I’ve caused him. “Donata, what have you done outside this palazzo?”

  “I did the right thing, Father. That’s what matters.”

  “I am the one to judge what matters.”

  Laura’s hands squeeze mine so tight, I fight not to cry out.

  Father puts his hands together as in a prayer and shakes them at me. “Have you been in the Ghetto these past three days?”

  “No,” I answer truthfully.

  “You sat at this table not long ago and asked about the Jews being confined to live in the Ghetto,” says Father. “What—”

  “I have never been in a synagogue, Father,” I say quickly. “I have made no inquiries about conversion.”

  “And, Father,” says Antonio, “it means nothing that Donata asked about the Ghetto. Donata asks questions in tutorial all the time, about all sorts of things. She asks about the poor. About disease. About anything at all. She simply wants to know things. She wants to know everything.”

  Father seems to think about Antonio’s words. He looks at Mother, then he turns back to me. “Your mother and I have faith that you are telling the truth.”

  “But, Donata,” says Mother, “denunciations, even false, anonymous ones, are costly. Everyone will know.”

  My ears ring. Scandal. Thank you, Lord.

  “I can’t understand this, Daughter,” Mother says. “How could you be the center of something that even remotely hints of heresy, no matter how frivolous the charge?”

  “I have never believed in our faith more fervently than I do now, Mother.”

  Mother comes around the table and stands beside me. “Be very careful as you answer my next questions, Donata. Much rides on them. Don’t play games—don’t try to get around the truth. Did you do anything in the past three days that would ruin your reputation as a lady were it to be known?”

  “I did nothing indecent, Mother.”

  “Which people know what you did these past three days?”

  “No one you will ever meet knows what I did. But it was nothing wrong in the eyes of God. I promise you that, Mother.”

  Mother strokes the hair back from my forehead. “You sound rational today, Donata. Like your old self. You seem well.”

  “I am well, Mother.”

  “You seem peaceful,” she says wistfully.

  “Trust your senses, Mother.”

  “They’re all I have to go on right now.” Mother looks at Father with resolve. “I will pay a visit to Margherita Priuli. I will ask her to prevail on her husband, Benedetto, to hold true to his marriage promise.”

  “Don’t do that, Mother,” I blurt out.

  “Please, Donata, you said the foolishness is past.”

  “Marriage is not for me, Mother. This much I know.”

  “Donata’s right,” says Father. “Whatever has happened, it wouldn’t have if Donata had behaved properly. She would not thrive within the bounds that a husband would set for her. And a failed marriage will do neither family any good.”

  “But Margherita and I—” begins Mother.

  “No,” says Father. “It would be a mistake for Donata.”

  “It would not be a mistake for Laura, though,” I say.

  Laura’s grip is fierce once more.

  Mother’s eyes go from me to Laura and back. For an instant I see suspicion in them, as though she almost guesses that I have somehow devised this result.

  “This is something we women can work out, Father,” says Andriana in a burst. “I’ll go with Mother to talk to Margherita.”

  “Yes,” says Father, with renewed strength. “If Margherita can be convinced, Benedetto will see the wisdom of it.”

  He’s nodding to himself and the anger and fear and disappointment that disfigured his face since last night are gone. Just like that—the world is going right again, everything is going right, my Great Plan is working. Father is almost happy—he can think clearly. I am no longer the huge problem. Now is the time to ask the new question that has come to me—the question of a future for me. Pax tibi, Marce, evangelista meus.

  But before I can speak, Father says, “The men must also follow a path: I want to know who wrote this denunciation. Malevolence of this level must be punished.”

  Francesco looks at his brothers. “Does anyone have an enemy so low as to t
ry to harm him by slandering our sister?”

  “If I have an enemy, I don’t know who it is,” says Piero.

  “Nor I,” says Vincenzo. “And Antonio couldn’t possibly have an enemy.”

  “Unless it’s someone who wants to undermine the Priuli betrothal,” says Francesco slowly. “After all, with both families being in the wool business, this marriage has financial consequences for the industry.”

  “I thought of that,” says Father. “But who? There’s no one obvious.”

  “May I take the letter, Father?” Piero pulls the paper toward him. “Let me show it to Messer Zonico. He might at least look at the handwriting and tell us what he can guess about the man.”

  My lungs deflate. Messer Zonico cannot fail to recognize my script, for he has taught me to write, he has harped on certain weaknesses, he will know from the very first word of the letter.

  “I will show it to him myself.” Father looks around the table. “Does anyone have anything else to add?”

  No one speaks, but Maria looks at my face. She comes around the table and climbs onto my lap.

  “Then let us try to eat.”

  The meal is silent.

  I have little appetite. Maria insists on feeding me. I swallow, more for her sake than my own. Exposure is imminent. My thoughts are scrambled. I can offer no explanation for my erratic behavior. They will never forgive me.

  Finally, we walk downstairs to the library, Father leading, with Mother close behind.

  Maria holds me by one hand, Laura by the other. Andriana precedes me. Paolina follows.

  “We are now a circle of sisters again,” I say in despair, for in all probability this is the last time.

  “With you in the center,” says Laura.

  “A flower,” says Paolina.

  “I like flowers,” says Maria.

  Messer Zonico comes in. He looks alarmed, faced with this mob in the room he’s so used to commanding. “Senator Mocenigo, I am pleased to see you.” He folds his hands in front and doesn’t look pleased at all. “But I do not understand. What has happened?”