The Book of Human Skin

by Michelle Lovric

  Swear Minguillo made his peerances only to supervise the Contessa’s dinners.

  Marcella Fasan

  Rafaela, as arranged, had at this moment distracted the vicaria by dropping her hymnbook loudly on the floor. Rosita and Margarita recollected themselves and our plan. While the citizens of Arequipa filed forward for communion, the two girls simultaneously addressed the vicaria with whispered liturgical questions we had prepared in advance. The vicaria looked flattered to be consulted on such an elevated matter and failed to silence them. Instead, she leaned forward towards Rosita and sketched a crucifix with her hands, whispering in an animated fashion.

  I dared only a few seconds of silent ocular contact. The boy was slender, tall and he had my – our – father’s brow and lips. Our eyes met. I saw that my half-brother Fernando understood that at last I knew who he was. His face paled, then flushed. His eyes filled with tears, but remained steadily fixed on my face. My own gaze travelled quickly to the pretty, plump woman beside him. My father had loved her, perhaps more than he loved my mother. He had neglected our family in Venice to be with them, leaving me to Minguillo’s care, without a protector. Yet they had suffered too, at Minguillo’s hand, been humiliated and made homeless and penniless. I found I wished these two nothing but good. I nodded as slightly as possible, and they both nodded back, wonderingly. The mother clutched the son’s hand, and he put his other arm around her. Her shoulders shook.

  Rafaela nudged me with her foot. It was no longer safe to look.

  I returned my eyes to the floor, yet my heart was dancing.

  Doctor Santo Aldobrandini

  In Spanish and Italian, it goes by the bland name of aconito, which gives no warning of its powers.

  They say that Aconitum nepallus was named ‘monkshood’ by the English pharmacists, because the flower folds upon itself like the cowl of a friar. Among its other names are ‘helmet flower’ and ‘soldier’s cap’. Then there are those who call it wolfsbane, because it is used to bait and murder those creatures.

  The effects of monkshood poisoning are well known to those whose duty it is to investigate suspicious deaths. When someone vomits, sweats copiously, froths lightly at the mouth and suffers a blurring of the sight, then an adult portion of monkshood may be suspected. Tiny doses, regularly administered, will weaken the heart, nerves and stomach, any one of which will fail comprehensively after a certain time or with one conclusive dose.

  Gianni told me things about the Contessa Amalia that worried me – but given the scandal that Minguillo had invented, that I had lusted after his wife – I was the last person to be able to make tender enquiries on her behalf. What if Marcella found out that I had intervened? Amalia, I feared, would ever be a sore spot between us.

  Yet the more I heard from Gianni, the more I became convinced that my reticence would connive at a murder. And what kind of doctor would I be, suspecting as I did, yet never intervening as Minguillo and his quack droppered a distillate of monkshood into his wife’s increasingly tiny meals?

  I assembled remedies for all the poisons that Minguillo might employ. One by one, I gave them to Gianni, who had Anna administer the herbs infused in water and milk.

  Gianni did not conceive, and I did not force on him, the ironical realization that, in funding these remedies from my own pocket, franc by franc and day by day, I unwillingly delayed my passage to Peru.

  Marcella Fasan

  The next day Fernando presented himself at the locutorio and asked to see me. Via the swift-running criadas, the rumour ran from the locutorio through the first terracotta courtyard to the novices’ cloister, bounced out of there and into the courtyard of the oranges, down Calle Toledo and up Calle Sevilla and straight into my cell on Josefa’s full, pretty lips.

  I dared not follow the rumour back to its source, and nor could I sit still, so I went to Rafaela, who was already smug and replete with the glad tidings.

  ‘I told you.’

  ‘But can this be good? Will the priora allow me to talk to him? Does she know what happened in the church?’

  ‘This is Arequipa. Everyone knows everything about everyone.’

  There was a shuffle outside the door.

  The priora ’s criada knew where to find me. My painting business with Rafaela was thriving, and we were now openly accepting commissions even from outside the convent. A tithe of our visible earnings was taken for charitable causes; the rest we spent on paint and canvas, and cigars for Rafaela. I had blushed to hear the priora singing our praises at the refectory more than once. She liked to say of us that ‘our two artist-nuns are to be much admired and perhaps a little indulged for the piety of their paintings’.

  The Vixen had snarled when she heard that, visibly snarled.

  That ruined face was in my mind as I hurried up through the courtyards to the priora’s office. Her expression was kind as I entered. ‘Sor Constanza, you have had a visitor.’

  I wondered how best to dissemble astonishment, but she quickly and kindly spared me the trouble of trying to lie to her. ‘I am sure that the fact of your father’s second family and your half-brother is generally known in Santa Catalina already, my dear. The more interesting question is how we are to proceed.’

  I nodded.

  ‘Of course, it was an immoral situation that is not to be condoned. Naturally it would be better if such things did not happen in the world.’

  To mitigate the severity of this speech, she winked at me. ‘However, Signor Rossini has seen fit to write divine music to accompany even acts of marital infidelity, so we must allow that they happen from time to time, and that a few extra years in Purgatory are reckoned worthwhile as payment by those who participate in such sins. Who are we to punish them further here on this earth? Now, the real question is, should we let you meet your half-brother Fernando?’

  ‘If the decision were mine, I would say yes,’ I said boldly, ‘for he is innocent. The condition of his birth was not chosen by him.’

  ‘As would I say yes, with all my heart. Yet I must think about how the world will judge us. So far my deliberations go in this direction: the boy Fernando is known to be a good and devoted person. He is pious, hardworking and supports his mother in every way. Moreover, the accident of his birth has borne no bitter fruit in his character as it sometimes does.’

  We were both thinking, The character of the other brother is bitterer than any fruit.

  ‘In cases like these,’ the priora continued, ‘for hot Spanish blood has frequently generated such scandals, I rehearse the world’s opinion on my vicaria, as there could be no severer censure than hers.’

  ‘She is sure to say no!’ I protested.

  ‘Of course she is,’ responded the priora tranquilly. ‘The question is how to make her “no” seem wrong-minded. You must leave this with me a while to ponder. I shall in the meantime act as a friendly embassy to young Master Fernando so as not to dash his hopes of meeting with you. I have a feeling that this means a great deal to him.’

  ‘I have heard they are desperately poor and subsist only on his earnings as a shoemaker,’ I said. ‘I wish there was something that I might do for them, some act of charity.’

  ‘You refer to your dowry?’

  ‘All that silver! How is it fair . . .’

  ‘But that is the convent’s property now. It was given to Santa Catalina in your name, and is not mine to distribute as I wish. Such alms as we give are carefully regulated. Go now, child. Please send in Sor Rosita to play the piano for me. I think much better to the accompaniment of Signor Rossini.’

  Minguillo Fasan

  The Uxorious Reader will know the problem.

  My second wife was proving more difficult to run to ground than the first.There were noble families in Venice who would not even entertain my overtures, seeming somehow alarmed at the fact that I began them before Amalia had actually died.And then an officer of the Sanità, alerted by some tittle-tattle, actually came to my door, demanding to see my wife.

  I had h
im taken up to Amalia’s chamber, where he took copious notes of her rather listless condition.The Reader shall be amazed by my composure, which was historic. Indeed, I felt a sweet calm at my core. I knew that nothing could be proved by her visible state.

  Yet after the man shuffled off, I found myself briefly disintegrating into raving shards of impotent anger. Someone had made a bid against me from the infinite shadow of anonymity, from that same menacing place where the will-thief dwelled.And the visit of the officer would cause talk.The Sensitive Reader knows how vile it is to feel the hot breath of a town whispering behind its hands about Him.

  It made me feel defiant, to think ‘to Hell in a tub’ with all of them.

  One day is a mother, the next a stepmother. The Reader and His hardworking informant must trudge through both. So.

  More than ever, I craved a new, son-bearing wife. In my accounts, I had already made provision for my second wedding: a table of opulence to strike my fine guests dumb, and a shower of small coins and dry bread rolls for the poor outside the church.A wedding would cost nearly as much as a book of human skin!

  The intriguing Mr Hamish Gilfeather was due in Venice very shortly. I found myself wondering if your man had a fecund daughter or two fathered on some drag-tailed wife in his craggy Scottish castle. If not a Venetian mother for my son, then a foreign one would do as well. She would have the advantages (to me) of ignorance and isolation.

  Doctor Santo Aldobrandini

  The Sanità had acted on my anonymous denuncia, but only with an official inspection of Amalia in her sickbed. They did not even send a doctor to see to her. Then I realized with a sickening pang that it was only if Amalia died that my denuncia would have any power.

  With those medicines that cost me so dear, we continued to keep Amalia alive day by day. Sometimes I feared that we but prolonged her agony: death might have been a merciful release for a girl trapped in marriage with Minguillo Fasan.

  Gianni meanwhile had become obsessed with the half-brother he had discovered in Arequipa. He was convinced that we should write to the boy, and tell him what evil had been done to his sister. The good man seemed agitated, kept muttering something about ‘the hair’ from which words could be prised neither meaning nor possibility.

  The impetuous Gianni also had wild hopes of the Scottish merchant who was coming to Venice for an interview with Minguillo. This merchant had known Marcella in the days when she had painted with Cecilia Cornaro. Then he had arrived back in Venice providentially, in time to see her safely across the ocean to South America. It was true that he had ensured delivery to me and Gianni of the only letters we had ever received from Marcella. Certainly, this Hamish Gilfeather seemed to be more than an obliging courier.

  But I could not wax so enthusiastic as the trusting Gianni.The problem, for me, was that this Hamish Gilfeather countenanced dealings with Minguillo Fasan: for that alone I deemed him a potentially obnoxious and untrustworthy person.

  Marcella Fasan

  ‘As good as a “yes”!’ Rafaela was jubilant.

  ‘As good as a “not yet” anyway.’

  The next Sunday in church I was able to exchange a definite nod with Fernando and a shy smile with his mother. I saw from the radiance of their faces that the priora had indeed encouraged them to hope for a good outcome.

  The next time the priora summoned me, it was to say, ‘Your brother is in the locutorio. Go to him now. I personally will supervise the exchange, but my ears and soul shall be full of Rossini, so you may consider this a private meeting.’

  ‘How did you . . . ?’

  ‘Settle with the vicaria? It would be better for you not to know, child. I do not wish to compound her humiliation or her dislike of you.’

  Relief made me tremble. I knelt and kissed her ring. I did not want to make the mistake with her that I had made with Gianni, with Cecilia, with Padre Portalupi. I wanted her to know that I needed her help and that she had earned my grateful trust.

  Did my new brother know that I was a cripple? That was my first thought as I limped into the narrow room with the grates, to the accompaniment of loud piano music from the oficina. Instinctively, I tried to hide the dragging of my right leg.

  Fernando was standing at the grate, his fingers laced through the metal.

  ‘Sister? Marcella?’ His tears were falling quietly upon the iron.

  I looked at the boy, reading my father’s dimly remembered loving expression on his gentle face. I could not speak.

  ‘Marcella,’ he whispered with a reverence in his voice, ‘or must I call you Sor Constanza?’

  His Spanish was of the New World, but I had learned to understand the inflections. I felt the eyes of the priora upon me, through her grate at the end of the room. Fernando’s knuckles were white on the bars. It was up to me to observe the proper courses. If I did not, then I might not see this precious boy again. ‘I am Sor Constanza, Fernando. I am so very happy to know you.’

  At this he broke into noisy sobs. I stood one foot from the grate, watching his shoulders shake. I longed to reach out and touch one of his slender fingers. But I knew how much depended on my restraint.

  ‘Our father must have loved you very much,’ I said soothingly. ‘He would be so proud of how you have grown up and how you look after your mother. Here in the convent I hear nothing but good of you.’

  He gasped, ‘And out in the streets . . . there are terrible stories of what that cerdo Minguillo did to you . . .’

  ‘Hush.’ I inclined my head towards the grate where the priora’s intelligent eye glittered in the lamplight.

  ‘I wanted to say . . . I mean to say, sister, that you have been so alone in the world, and I want, my mother and I want . . . for you not to be alone any more. We want you to know that we already love you.’

  At this all my resolve crumpled and with it my weak knee. I fell back against the bench, sobbing as loudly as the boy had done.

  Fernando misunderstood the nature of my emotion. ‘For you,’ he moaned, ‘it must be such a cruel exile, to be driven out of hermosísima Venice and sent to the end of the world. Venice! Yet Santa Catalina is safer than Venice for you . . . and we are here. If you will accept our protection, we shall be your guardian angels outside the walls of the convent. Nothing bad shall happen to you again while I am alive to protect you.’

  The irony of this situation forced me to exclaim, ‘It is not your fault! Our father chose to spend more time in Arequipa than Venice. Yet you were deprived of what he would have wanted to provide for you. I feel guilty,’ I blurted, ‘that you live in penury while I have such comforts here.’

  ‘I am grateful every day to be the son of Fernando Fasan. I do not need payment for it.’

  ‘You are so thin . . .’

  ‘Oh Marcella, even with that veil . . .’

  I heard the priora’s gown rustle warningly. I must not acknowledge any physicality in the room.

  ‘Brother Fernando, if we can behave decorously I believe that the kind priora will allow us to meet again.’

  ‘Yes, that is what I want more than anything.’

  I heard the door opening behind him, and the priora’s voice calling through the grate, ‘Go back to your cell, Sor Constanza. We shall talk later.’

  Fernando whispered, ‘Next time, bring me outlines of your feet, sister. On paper.’

  Sor Loreta

  Priora Mónica went against every decency and allowed the bastard half-brother Fernando Fasan to visit the Venetian Cripple in the convent.

  ‘No good can come of this,’ I warned, intercepting her in the main cloister where she stood enjoying the sun in a very sensual way. My angels were very active that day, spurring Me to brave defiance, even though I knew that the priora detested this kind of intervention.

  ‘And what bad?’ she asked Me, humming a vulgar little snort of Rossini. I thought she might have stopped that since the Corsican had been defeated and sent to an island in the South Pacific to rot.

  ‘The boy wants to make hi
s sister some shoes to support her crippled leg. Even your God would allow that blameless act, I trust, Sor Loreta.’

  Sor Narcisa and Sor Arabel were of the opinion that these shoes would be the agent of mischief. I told them not to distract themselves with crazed conspiracies, but to secretly watch over the Venetian Cripple herself with redoubled attention.

  Priora Mónica came to Me, furiously angry. ‘Why do you have poor Sor Constanza followed by your jackals wherever she goes?’

  ‘Because she is sure to reveal herself in sin, sooner or later,’ I answered tranquilly.

  At this the priora appeared to be taken with some kind of convulsion. She lost control of her temper, and shouted at Me: ‘Sor Loreta, I sicken at the sight of you! You do everything you can to put other nuns in a bad light. Is that charitable? Is that loving? Your nature is contentious and rivalrous like a man’s. An evil man’s! Quite apart from your hideous appearance, you must ask yourself, “Am I the kind of bride that God would choose for Himself ?” ’

  With that blasphemy, Priora Mónica compounded her other notorious insult: her wish that I should crucify my tongue. In fact, all these months past, the other light sisters had never let Me forget it, for they counted the days lost in which they did not remind Me of it in subtle, wicked ways. Now it burned afresh in My mind, that felt lit from within with a new, clear fire.

  Marcella Fasan

  Back in Rafaela’s cell, a clamorous company of my friends cross-examined me about the meeting.

  ‘Fernando must be gasping to find out about Venice, about how your father lived there, about what Minguillo did to you.’

  ‘Of that, he seems to know something. Which has made me curious, Rafaela. What did you know of me before we met? My brother has always written my biography in advance. I thought that he told the nuns only that I must be sent away to a New World convent because Napoleon was closing those of the Old World.’