The Floating Book

by Michelle Lovric

  Gentilia knew that all anonymous notes, such as hers, were officially burned. But she also knew that the sheer volume and variety of her letters, and the number of months they had been arriving, could not be ignored and that someone, somewhere, was scratching Sosia’s name in a ledger on an official desk.

  Lately she had begun to think of signing her name to them, a good name, respectable stock and no madness or evil in its past, and of persuading the two old blind nuns with whom she shelled peas on long afternoons to witness her denunciations, which would make them valid currency for the Inquisitors. She need not sully the purity or peace of Suor Nanna and Suor Elisabetta by explaining the detailed nature of the document they would sign. It would be enough to tell them that she wished to present a proposal for Sant’ Angelo to adopt more of the foundlings currently flooding into the city. The old ladies, who loved the feel of a child on their bony knees, would be happy to support the idea of more babies at Sant’ Angelo di Contorta and they would fumble their shaky signatures on to her page with a grateful press of their spidery hands.

  Far better, the old nuns would sigh, the cries of babies in the night than the disgusting sighs and screams, masculine and feminine, which enlivened the dark air in the cells of the nunnery. The continued hot weather had prolonged the season of late-night visits to the island. The two elderly sisters, like Gentilia, could only but imagine what bestial acts caused their protagonists to ululate in such agonies of joy, drowning out the pious parrots. At least, Gentilia doubted if the old ladies could imagine it in such detail as she did.

  She knew the results too. Babies. Hundreds of them. She knew what happened to them, unlike Nanna and Elisabetta. The infants were drowned like kittens. Only respectable babies came to her for their shrouds to be sewn. The others met their fate naked as beasts.

  She had seen it herself, several times. There was a place where they went near the inlet of the island. She had watched the shadowy figures dispose of their guilt in the dead of night … the babies never seemed to come up again after the quick blow they were given to the head. It was as if the little bodies sank like stones through the water and the soft mud underneath and right back down to the belly of the earth that had not wanted them.

  * * *

  Sometimes I think he just wants one more heir for his quick books. Once he has got me with child and I have brought it forth, then he will act on his threats.

  I tried to burn the letters once. But I found he’d used some kind of ink that not just lives, but knows how to dance in the flames. The words were writ in fire then, and I could not help but stare at them. I believe they’ve burned in my soul. I am branded with his hate.

  Now I keep them, for if aught befalls me then sometime my son should know how and why.

  When I know my man’s to come home there’s such a clench in my skin that I can scarce move. When I hear his step, my tongue nips and nips at the roof of my mouth. I gulp like a fish and start to breathe all wrong, in when it should be out, and out when it should be in, so small breaths are at war in my throat and I feel that my life hangs by a frayed thread.

  He comes now. I must—

  No, it is not him. Just the wind, which stirs the glutinous vapours of the canal, bringing no relief from the heat, merely wrapping its arms around us. Sometimes I wish to hide my son when I hear those steps – Madonna, there they are again.

  My eyes run straight to the cat’s corner to make sure all is in order. For he has lately defied my expectations and climbed into my man’s study through an open window. The little wax-woman must have met his fancy for some reason, though she’s not made of silk or velvet. Perhaps it is because she’s smooth as cold butter. Anyway, he has filched her. When I saw the empty space behind the box I ran straight to his boudoir and dug through the scarves. There she lay, many scarves deep, swathed in peddler’s fangles like a gypsy princess.

  My heart missed a beat because I fear above all things that my man might find her somewhere in the house and accuse me of witchcraft. I know he thinks me bird-witted because I believe in ghosts, but the wax-woman would be a different thing entirely for she would show that I dabbled in the sorcerers’ arts myself. He does not understand the difference of course, though it is plain to me: I love ghost tales but I hate witches.

  Even if I were to explain the truth of the wax doll to him, it would show him one more reason not to trust me: that I found her at Sirmione, did not show him at once, hid her from him all this time, and did not leave her in the earth where I found her, as I now wish with all my heart I had.

  * * *

  Rabino, passing Sosia on the stairs, saw a flash of coloured silk under the light cloak she was fastening. He mumbled the usual shamefaced greeting and slid past her. She hummed under her breath, did not acknowledge him.

  I’m so lonely here with her, Rabino thought piteously, yet I must want her to go out. I never stop her. Perhaps it would be kinder of me to try?

  He cleared his throat and looked down beseechingly at his wife’s narrow back.

  ‘I – I wish you would not go about the town so much,’ he stammered. Sosia stopped for a moment, but did not turn around.

  ‘Does that mean you love me, Mister Doctor? That you want to keep me close in your house? You mean you love me exclusively? You mean—’ Sosia broke off to laugh loudly and continued down the stairs, still gusting with laughter.

  ‘I mean I don’t want to share my wife … with strangers, I suppose. I feel you are being reckless with your – health, and you are not discreet,’ he added lamely.

  ‘Indeed?’ said Sosia, swivelling round to look at him at the bottom of the stairs. ‘I don’t ask fidelity of you, Rabino. You’re free to find your own pleasure where you want it. Leave me to mine, eh?’

  ‘I don’t want to be like you. I’m afraid hurtful things are being done—’

  ‘And if they are? It toughens people up. The softer they are, the more they squeal.’

  What did he see in her eyes when she said that?

  ‘No, Sosia, it makes them more vulnerable. Can we at least come to some understanding? You are becoming … wilder, it seems to me. I’m afraid for you.’

  ‘Afraid of me perhaps?’

  She smiled and turned to leave.

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘Do you really want me to tell you?’

  Rabino flushed and shook his head, licking his lips nervously.

  ‘Good boy,’ she said. ‘Perhaps I won’t leave after all.’

  He recoiled, and would have said No! That’s not what I want at all, but at that moment the church bell of San Trovaso struck. Sosia appeared to remember something. She jerked and walked rapidly to the door. Rabino felt the cold sweat of relief steaming on his back.

  * * *

  Sosia, on her way to Domenico Zorzi, shook her head in wonderment at Rabino’s gaucheness. Surely there was no need to negotiate the terms of their marriage at this late stage?

  Then she smiled to herself, recalling that Domenico had promised her a gift that day: her own copy of Catullus.

  An hour later, having earned it, she stood with the printed book in her hands. Domenico’s thin body was behind her, still caressing her breasts and his lips were on the back of her neck.

  ‘You like it?’ he asked. ‘Is it not a very fine work?’

  ‘Very fine. Is that Felice Felicianos hand on the capital letters?’

  ‘Indeed. I commissioned him to ornament the printed pages. Do you know him?’

  ‘Everyone knows Felice,’ she said vaguely, pushing her buttocks back against him.

  Domenico twitched nervously. There was something in her voice that raised unwelcome thoughts. Domenico, who considered himself the most classical of the noblemen of Venice, admitted to himself he was not the most republican. He did not care to share a woman with a scribe, not even if it were the inestimable Felice Feliciano, and the woman a common foreigner too. He tried to concentrate on Sosia’s breasts, wrapping both arms around her, enclosing her body
and the book in her hand.

  ‘Keep it safe. You know it’s very special.’

  ‘Yes, very special. You know that I appreciate it. I love to have my own copy of it.’

  ‘By the way,’ said Domenico. ‘I should be very happy to look at your own poems sometime.’

  Sosia looked bemused. Domenico persisted: ‘I know you carry the leather book I gave you for them. There’s no need to be shy about showing me your work. Perhaps you have talent.’

  Her eyes flew to the ledger lying on the shelf among her carefully discarded clothes.

  ‘I’m not ready,’ she said. ‘Let’s make do with Catullus for the moment.’

  Sosia turned to meet his lips, laying her gift carefully behind her as she drew him back to her.

  Domenico prepared himself again; Sosia closed her eyes, smiling. He turned her over, reared above her like a mantis and moved slowly inside her for many minutes.

  This is good, thought Domenico, I give her real pleasure.

  This book, smiled Sosia, as her buttocks rose and fell upon it, is mine in ways he cannot guess.

  Printed on fine Bologna paper by Wendelin, the initial capitals penned in by Felice, edited by Bruno, the book, she felt, belonged more to her than to anyone else in the world.

  * * *

  The nuns warned Bruno about his sister. Certain unsuitable behaviour was hinted at. It had also been noted that Gentilia made more excursions to the town than could be explained easily. It was a matter of surprise to him that she ever left the island. What did she do? She never came to find him. He was agitated at the thought of her wandering around Venice, a dangerous place for an inexperienced young girl and surely perilous for one so unbalanced in her thinking.

  The Mother Superior wrote to him, asking him if there were madness or brain fever in the family. Bruno quivered at the thought that his sister’s verbal incontinence had already revealed his affair with Sosia or, worse, that Gentilia’s own unmentionable feelings towards him had become public knowledge. Until he knew the state of things, he felt he could not be seen at Sant’ Angelo.

  The one thing he knew was that Gentilia would never tell how Sosia had destroyed the painting: that she had promised him and she would never break her word.

  ‘Please go to her,’ he begged Felice. ‘Tell me what you think.’

  So Felice Feliciano came to visit Gentilia, not for the first time. Bruno liked it when he did so and he had many reasons to wish to please Bruno.

  She was making lace at her seat in the courtyard when he arrived, oblivious to the sun scorching the parting of her hair. Felice observed that under Gentilia’s fingers, working as they talked, with her eyes downcast, greasy heraldic animals sprang to life, eagles, griffins, crowned lions. She would not answer his questions about her absences from the convent, but made general statements about the weather and her digestion.

  Gentilia did not much like Felice; had always felt suspicious of his repeated attendance upon her. He never said much that was of interest to her, just endless judgemental comments on the beauties of other nuns and too many questions about Bruno.

  She decided to make use of Felice, just as he used her, for information.

  ‘Tell me about Sosia Simeon,’ she demanded, glancing up at him quickly, with a look, which she imagined, blended an innocent curiosity with precocious insight.

  ‘You know about her, then?’

  Her reply emerged in jerky phrases. ‘A little. She’s a courtesan. A Jewess. My brother clings to an unclean attachment to her. I wish he would stop it. It’s killing him.’

  ‘Ah Gentilia, you give her too much honour. Sosia is not a proper courtesan. A real courtesan’s kept in good style by regular retainers. She’s cultivated, writes a little poetry perhaps. Her conversation is exquisite. She offers delicate meat for the body and soul.’

  Gentilia’s mouth hung open. She leaned closer to Felice.

  ‘A great courtesan’s rooms are as beautiful as she is, hung with silks and gold tassels. Nothing that’s not lovely is seen around her. There’s a famous story about one great Venetian courtesan who was receiving a foreign ambassador. After some satisfactory hours in her company he felt an irresistible need to cleanse his mouth with a thorough spit, and found himself in distress. In the end, he called in his servant and spat in his face.’

  ‘Why did he do that?’

  ‘He explained that in that wonderful place, his servant’s face was the basest thing. Everything else was too beautiful. Nothing else was low enough to be defiled by spitting.’

  ‘O Dio,’ breathed Gentilia. She listened with a childlike avidity, as if to a bedtime story. Felice, noting the expression on her face, continued with added relish.

  ‘True courtesans are merchants of beauty, retailers of fantasy as much as their own bodies. Of course there was no reason for that ambassador not to spit on the carpet, as he would anywhere else, but the courtesan had cultivated the appearance of such exquisiteness that he’d been completely transported away from everyday life. The ambassador was pleased, because in her rooms he saw himself as the most elite and refined of lovers; he felt that he’d made the most discriminating choice of a mistress for that night. The courtesan was clever because she sold him not just the use of her skin but exactly the sumptuous illusion he wanted.’

  Gentilia interrupted: ‘So Sosia, even though she’s not rich as a courtesan, is very lovely? She has the ways of a courtesan?’

  ‘No, Sosia is not like this, and nor, I believe, would she choose to be. She has noble lovers – even a Malipiero or two, I believe, but she scorns the beauty aids of the expensive whores. Not for her the depilatory lotions, hair pluckers and curlers, perfumed creams. She would not put herself out to attract a man. She just takes the men who come to her as she is.’

  ‘She’s lower even than a whore? And she still has a Malipiero?’

  ‘It’s hard to explain, but she has something. For example, Sosia, even when she’s dressed, walks as if she’s naked.’

  ‘As you do?’ Gentilia observed.

  Felice was taken aback and said nothing. Gentilia continued.

  ‘I cannot understand it. Why would Bruno degrade himself with such as her?’ She shook her head violently. ‘Is she a witch then, Felice? Does she cast the beans and write carte di voler bene?’

  Felice wondered, how does Gentilia know of these things? I have told her something of the witches, but never such details as these.

  ‘Nothing quite so obvious or tangible, my dear. If I had to explain it I would say it was something to do with the way she smells. If that is magic, then Sosia is magic. She doesn’t believe in all the hocus pocus of the wise women and the herbalists. She scorns it. She’s more subtle and more intriguing than that.’

  He had said too much. Gentilia looked at him with narrowed eyes.

  So even Felice Feliciano has been there, Gentilia thought, to that unclean nest that Sosia keeps for seducing men.

  An idea was coming to her; an excitingly bad idea. She wanted Felice to go away so she could think it out alone. It was a most private plan.

  She asked apparently afire with pious fervour: ‘Why does this Sosia not go to the Casa dei Catecumeni and get herself converted to the true faith? Surely she too can be cleansed of her sin?’

  Her question had the desired effect. Felice snorted dismissively and rose to leave.

  But before that Gentilia managed to kiss him. Catching him by surprise, she suddenly slid her mouth over his. Even as she pressed herself on him, he kept retracting his lips. Her eyes became long and wide, so close up. He could not make himself move away from her. This kind of kiss was something he had not tried before. He put his head at right angles to hers and tasted her. Her lips were slick and stank of holy oil.

  Her blood must be thick like gravy, slow and shapeless, thought Felice. She could be dangerous.

  He pulled away and hurried to the boat, hoping for a breath of air from the water.

  * * *

  My man brings home not
just manuscripts to read but the books of other printers, so he can compare their type with his. These days he has another sad sport: to see which printers have gone to Jenson to buy his letterforms. The house is filling with heavy dark books and sheaves of paper, where once it was light with the glass I used to buy from Murano. I put the books away in drawers without looking at them; by this I try to keep the glass winning over them.

  When the cat dug out a drawer this morning, a pile of papers fell on the ground. I picked it up without much pleasure. Usually I put them straight back but for some reason today I began to read what it was about. At first I thought it was a joke but now I fear that it is not.

  This manuscript, which is supposed to be some kind of manual for practical use, tells how to choose a wife. Why should he bring home a book like that? He already has a wife! Does he want another? I tell myself this is just another text to consider for the printworks, but I cannot stop myself from turning the pages. I come to passages that make my blood run cold, for they make the choice of a wife seem so venal and unfeeling a thing. The book tells how most of all a man should choose a small wife such as I am.

  But for why?

  For she takes less space in the bed, I read, so you can save cash and buy a smaller bed! You can save on her clothes; she will not need such yards of stuff. She’ll be too tiny to be seen at the window so she scarce needs clothes at all. Then there’s the hope, I read, that being small, she might need to climb on a stool to do the chores – and there’s a chance she may fall off and be killed, so you’ll be rid of her for good.

  I shudder when I read this.

  And if there is a rope to hand…? I think.

  Choose a woman who looks vile, the manuscript says, so she will get sons with none but you. There is no other way to be sure. And how she’ll show gratitude to you in the bed, when you’ve been so kind as not to see how bad she looks.

  I rush to the glass. The silver skin of it frowns at me; it sees things I don’t understand. I look at my face. Is it vile? I think not. It is much praised. The eyes are large, dark brown, with a tilt up at the edges. Each lash is long and curls. My hair is blonde as it should be, no need to dye it with acqua solana. My nose is straight with a soft tip. My mouth is not small but my lips are wine-red. No, I am not vile. Men still turn in the street to look at me.