by Laura Rahme
Catarina’s Torment
Letter from Catarina Contarini to Antonio da Parma
27 December 1422
After my first encounter with Magdalena, I redoubled in my efforts to have Giacomo’s child, fearful of losing him. I consulted healers, sickened myself with sweetmeats and took in herbal concoctions to aid pregnancy. My efforts were in vain. A few weeks later, I learned that I was already pregnant. Soon, my child was growing inside me, reminding me of my husband’s love and the life we were creating together.
My jubilance did not last.
In the months that followed, I overheard that Magdalena and Francesco had settled in Santa Croce. They had made the parish of San Giocomo dell’Orio their home and it was said that they were rarely seen attending the sermons. And one day I had a curious conversation with one of the ladies at mass.
“Cara mia! Catarina, you are a showing already! I am pleased for you,” she cajoled as she reached to feel the small bump below my waist.
This pregnancy was easier than when I first bore Lorenzo at sixteen. I felt stronger and more confident. In truth, my determination to carry this child to its birth was spurred on by my rival. I glowed with pride as my friend went on. The women in the parish were overly supportive as they had heard of my miscarriage the year before. They gifted me with printed images that would inspire a healthy birth. I soon beheld prints, set in gilded frames. They depicted the Madonna and the Child, or else golden-lock angels cavorting in the heavens.
“Pray that your little child is as beautiful as these dear babies. Keep these images close to you in every room of your house, and look upon them. Keep away from gargoyles and all ugliness. Do not, in your state, touch your husband’s dogs or look upon their beastly faces. Your mind must behold beauty daily, Catarina, so that your child may be as precious.”
“You are no longer young, you must be careful. Do not exert yourself, Catarina. Remember to rest and keep to your bed in the coming months. I hear the Napoli woman is out in the streets of San Polo in her seventh month. She is depraved.”
One word about Magdalena and my curiosity stirred.
“She sets out alone?”
“Accompanied at all times by her gondolier, Maffeo, but she never rests. She is mingling for a trade, they say. Speaking to the wives of each guild leader; doing what she can to save her husband’s honor. I overheard from a friend that a lace maker in Burano is her latest acquaintance. They say she is helping her husband with his new enterprise. God help us if we now must commerce with a Napoletana.”
My voice rose in indignation.
“But surely she must tire herself. Does she not care for her unborn child?” I scorned.
“It appears not. The woman is possessed. Up early and in the Rialto from the early hours. To hear the way she carries on with one errand after another, one would think her womb is dry,” she went on.
The morality in her tone gave me instant comfort. It pleased me that the women in my parish, my world, found fault in Magdalena. It never occurred to me, in that moment, that my fascination with Magdalena might be fuelled by jealousy.
There was much to reproach in the Napoli woman’s reticence for attending mass and her refusal to remain at home while with child. What sort of a woman would do this? Only one with a dubious morality. Still, with every visit to mass, I admit that I grew more and more curious about her.
My curiosity was not the only thing that had risen. I was passionately in love with Giacomo. At thirty-one, he was in his virile prime. He had grown a stately beard to mourn the loss of our second child last year and had since not reverted to his clean shaven appearance. I loved the way the hair on his temple met with his beard like a classic Greek God. I was discovering an increasing desire to lay with him. Often, I would watch his naked shoulders. I would sense a rising heat between my thighs and I longed for him to take me. I know what you will think, avogadore. It is a mortal sin to seek pleasure and chastity is a virtue. Why would I lie with my husband when I was already with child? You must understand my position in those days. I had seen desire in his eyes for another woman and every occasion I had to prove to myself that this desire was for me, I took it. In the first three months of pregnancy, we made love almost every day, sometimes twice a day.
Each time, I saw in him the same renewed energy that I had witnessed following our first meeting with the Visconti. But as the months went past, I found him to be less responsive.
“We should perhaps let you rest. We may do harm to the child,” he would say.
Often, I succeeded in reassuring him that the child was strong in me and that all was well. This was true. I did not suffer from nausea or tenderness as I had with Lorenzo. And so he would relent.
But in the fourth month, Giacomo told me he would not lay with me until the child was born. I was hurt. In my bitterness, I found myself more and more fascinated with Magdalena. It was an anxious need to know all there was about her.
I attempted to keep my interest subtle so as not to raise suspicion. Had anyone suspected that I saw Magdalena as my rival, my pride would have been damaged. No one knew of Giacomo’s past love affair with Magdalena. They all assumed she was a complete stranger to me. I wanted to keep it that way.
In the parish meetings, I heard that the candle light in the Visconti home had been seen numerous times to burn during late hours and that both her and her husband were at work well into the night. What were they up to?
“They have purchased an old atelier. They are planning to create masks,” had insisted the oldest lady in the parish as though it were an outrage. “One would think there is enough obsession with Carnivale in this city without strangers further encouraging it. My gondolier travels past their home at night. He affirms that the Visconti are receiving shipments of materials almost every day. He has seen it all arrive—gold paint, silver paint, gems, laces, damasks and brocades, leather and beads. The Magdalena is a sharp woman.”
“Where did they find such a large sum of money?” I asked, my senses suddenly awake. “Francesco Visconti is not a wealthy man. He cannot afford the gold paint, let alone the expensive lace and gems. And what about the silk?” By now my voice was tinged with anxiety.
“That is the question on everyone’s lips, cara mia. And to think that the mask makers do not have a guild. Magdalena Visconti can do what she likes. There are no rules, no standards for her art. Heaven forbids she preys on the popolani with overpriced artless trinkets.”
I was not listening. “But…how could she have financed the atelier in the first instance?” I heard myself repeat, barely breathing.
“That is a mystery, Catarina. The Milanese and his strega are doing very well, are they not? Perhaps the Magdalena has used her witchcraft to find some gold. Isn’t that what everyone in Venezia secretly wishes for? The Napoletana is a clever one. But I pity her husband—a man without money is a corpse that walks.”
“I hear she is a cunning merchant. She saw how the popolani are demanding more elaborate masks these days. Who wants a plain bauta, when you can have pearls and rubies and feathers and what not? Everyone wishes to look his best. They want a work of art on their faces. They want to be the first to wear this and that color. No one wants to be seen wearing the same masks as the year before. The Napoli woman understands that. It would not surprise me if she made a profit,” added another childhood friend.
“But who, who would lend her such a sum?” I repeated, dismissing claims of witchcraft and ignoring my friend’s rigorous appraisal of my rival. I was tormented. I needed answers.
They both stared at me without responding.
“Catarina, you look flushed. See how you have agitated yourself. You should remain at home on Sundays. Let the priest visit you. Here, cara mia, let me take your hand and escort you to a carriage.”
Following my fellow parishioners pressing concern, I did not attend church in the last two months of my pregnancy. I was alone at home, bed ridden on most days. Having little to do apart from ordering the servants, I was plague
d with thoughts about how Giacomo passed his time when not in the presence of his trade partners. I grew eager to discover where he set off to daily and the persons he saw outside his merchant affairs. Incessant questions ran through my mind. Had he called upon the Visconti since their settling in Santa Croce? Had Magdalena given birth? I forced myself to think of pleasantries and stared at length at my cupids.
I devised a plan, if only to keep my soul from unrest. I asked my loyal Slav gondolier to tell me all he knew about Giacomo’s whereabouts. The slave was mine but he sometimes oared Giacomo along the canal when Lorenzo borrowed his father’s gondolier. I vowed to free him and set him up with a gondolier guild within my second child’s fifth birthday if he could tell me everything about Giacomo’s whereabouts. It became our little secret. I felt guilty for my mistrust of Giacomo but I had a rising suspicion that it was he who might have come to the Visconti’s financial aid on Magdalena’s request.
I have asked myself this question for years. Had my husband come to Magdalena’s aid? Had he parted from ducats in the hope of gaining her favor? Such was my suspicion.
This suspicion grew all the more with each passing day, since Giacomo was no longer lying with me. We slept in separate beds for fear that he would harm the unborn child. Having set Luca to watch my husband gave me some peace of mind. Each day, Luca returned with no significant news to give me.
The first of the descos da parto arrived from friends. They visited in the last month of my pregnancy, bearing these beautifully decorated wooden trays of the sort that are meant to safeguard the birth and ensure that my child would be strong. On gift trays that seemed to come daily, I received jars brimming with poultry soup and sweetmeats. I gorged myself with sweetmeats. The gifts were so regular that I began to dream of offal.
It was always the same dream. A swarming mass of human offal lay in the Visconti atelier surrounded by a sludge of blood and wherever I stood, I could heard the tinkling of Magdalena’s metallic charms close by. There was no escape. I would awake in sweat, breathing heavily, horrified of falling asleep again.
And still, more descos da parto came, more wooden trays with colorful depictions of cupids and little children, or else triumphant processions inspired by Petrarch’s poems. My bedroom walls were adorned with these and everywhere I looked, cherubs and beautiful children stared down at me. Some of these trays were gorgeous and set in gold. One of these had an inscription to bless me and my unborn child. It read, “May God give health to every woman who gives birth and to the child’s father. May the child be born without fatigue or danger! I am a baby who lives.”
All these images had soothed me in my first pregnancy but this time, they did nothing to calm my spirits. Only Luca could have brought me the news I so badly wanted, but every day, he returned with nothing.
At the end of my pregnancy, I was sick to tears of gifts. The more I received them, the more I grew apprehensive of losing my child. The reality of its impending arrival became vivid and the cold fear of childbirth set in. By then, I was weighted down with at least six coral amulets to protect my unborn child and myself from any jettatura. The fear of such persons was the reason I saw no one outside close relatives and servants.
My family believed that one of our neighbors, unfortunate as it was, was cursed with the ability to give the evil eye and cast evil spells sometimes to the detriment of other people’s health. It was not their fault. But this jettature may have been the cause of the loss of my dead child a year earlier. It was best that I remain secluded from such persons.
One evening, when Luca did not come, I sent the maid to call for him. The maid ushered him in. He was hesitant. I knew from the fearful expression on his face that something had happened to Giacomo.
I raised myself up on my pillow.
“Luca, you must tell me everything. Remember our agreement.”
He advanced timidly into my bed chamber and cast a fearful glance in my direction.
“My master took to the San Cassiano district last night,” he admitted sheepishly.
I emitted a sigh of relief. I knew that my husband could not have held back for much longer. Of course, I felt the sting, the pain of knowing he had visited a meretrice. But in his sin toward me, it was still better than if he had visited the Magdalena.
“Signora, man are weak and prone to the demons of the night. If the signore cannot be with his lovely wife while she is with child, he will seek another woman. But it means little. You understand?”
I emitted a delightful laugh. I found Luca’s short sermon endearing. I stretched out in my bed and relaxed, caressing my unborn child with one hand under the covers.
“Do not concern yourself for me, Luca. Grazie. You may go,” I said, dismissing him gently.
My child stirred in my belly. I had a sudden thought.
“Luca!”
He returned to my bed side.
“Luca…did you stay with him all night?”
“Si, Signora.”
“And…did you see…” I was a little embarrassed by the question. But I had to know. My fear had resurged in me and a terrifying idea devoured me. I sat up and stared fixedly at the bashful Luca, who shriveled with discomfort. “Luca, tell me what she was like, the woman he chose… Was she… did she have red locks like mine? Was she fair in complexion like me?”
I saw by the animated glow in his eyes that he’d understood what I wanted to know. Had my husband sought me or had he sought, on that night, to forget me. I waited, holding my breath for the answer.
Luca pursed his lips.
“Signora, it was late. I did not have a torch. I could not see well from that distance. She was up on the bridge when he took her inside. Her breasts did not glow in the moonlight. She may have been a Southerner. I think…she was a dark haired carampana. Si. Long black hair, signora.” He bit his lips upon seeing the scowl on my face. “Perhaps it was red, too. I cannot remember.”
Liar, I thought. And I collapsed back onto my pillow, too shaken with grief to say anything further. I stared ahead in silence, refusing to look at my slave. Luca left immediately after, with his head bowed in shame.
Erotic images of Giacomo lying with someone who resembled Magdalena sent waves of fury through me. It was not enough that he’d imagined her face while lying with me earlier this year. He had now found someone in her image so that he could play at making love to his Napoletana.
I wanted to cry. The intensity of the past months had reached its climax. I had been defeated. My heart raced with anger. I knew what I wanted to know. He wanted her. He had always wanted her.
I was wracked with a jealousy so intense, that when the first pangs of childbirth tore through me, it was resentment, more than bodily pain, which carried my screams. The mid-wife was surprised when she found me determined to give birth. I wanted my child to live. I had to be strong, strong like Magdalena. But stronger.
Antonio, what else is there to say? You wanted proof of Giacomo’s innocence from the crime of which he is accused. Giacomo’s only crime is toward me, his wife. For the years that followed, Giacomo’s desire for me diminished until we slept no more with each other. This only inflamed gossip and I dismissed servants numerous times to quell the voices. But to no avail.
From Luca, who remained discreet as ever, I knew that Giacomo saw carampanas almost every month but they were all dark haired women, women who would give him the illusion he craved and could never have.
When I finally set Luca free, he refused to join a gondolier guild. He remained my faithful servant until he left us three months ago.
Magdalena died three years after she gave birth. It ought to have relieved my anxieties but it did not return Giacomo’s devotion to me. The rift between us grew for years afterwards until Giacomo saw me only as the mother of his children and the creditor to which he owed four thousand ducats for the use of my dowry, as decreed by dowry law. Even his new dogs were granted more tenderness than I.
We remained estranged until this year, when he
was murdered. But in all this time, no, Antonio, Giacomo Contarini never desired a man. He desired Magdalena Visconti with every fiber of his loins and every breath of his soul. I saw how he wept when Magdalena’s child drowned six years ago. It was as though he had loved everything about Magdalena.
This is the confession I promised you, Antonio. Now, between us, you must read this diary and see for yourself, this janara I have spoken about. Perhaps she, too, will cast her spell on you.
I remain your friend, avogadore. Please safeguard my confession. Have pity on me.
Yours in faith,
Catarina Contarini
Giacomo’s Diary
Journal of Antonio da Parma
27 December 1422
Today, I read and reread Catarina’s remarkable confession and having done so, I then burned the candlelight over Giacomo’s diary.
The first thing I endeavored was to retrieve the ink portrait. In it, Magdalena appeared much younger than in the painting hanging in Francesco’s atelier.
I had only met Magdalena in dreams yet I experienced a tightness in my chest as I laid eyes on her.
It is at once strange and pleasurable, this sadness one feels, when in the face of beauty. Could it arise from a pining for something we have once known and long to regain? Or perhaps the realization of our own submission to a being that consumes us, even as it evades us and will never be within reach.
Those lips, that delicate nose, those languorous eyes beneath strong brows. Her hair seemed to rest on naked shoulders, as though Giacomo had taken liberties with his model. With the pout of her moody lips, she appeared to speak out to the artist, reaching out for him with her eyes, always with her eyes—calling him to bare his soul.
Giacomo had possessed a secret talent. He had admirably captured the light behind her. It descended on her hair like a sensual caress. I deduced that at the time of drawing, Giacomo must have regarded her as a muse, an idol to be worshipped. It was evident that he had drawn her while in Verona, during the days of their courtship. The details he had carefully reproduced of the pendant round her neck hinted to the length of time he must have spent with her.
