Courtesan's Lover (17 page)

“I shall be home well before sunset, I hope, Maria,” Filippo said as he drained his cup of watered wine and wiped it out with the last piece of bread. “I had thought I would be detained again tonight, but Vasquez for some reason seems to have other things than work on his mind for once—I have no idea what those things might be, of course; he does not see fit to tell me of his private affairs, but he has been quite distracted for days—and, thank Heavens, he has not mentioned…mmn…that accurshed piece of transhlation since lasht week.” He had taken an apricot from a bowl in the middle of the table as he spoke and bitten it in half: with his mouth thus packed, his last few words were almost incomprehensible. He picked the exposed stone out of the other half of the apricot with one finger and threw it into a nearby bowl.

“Translation?”

Filippo waved the rest of the apricot at her as he swallowed. “Oh, you know—that infernally tedious document that I have been working on for a couple of weeks. I'll bring it home with me and work on it here.”

Maria said, “I thought you told me that was finished.”

Filippo frowned. “I know what I said. I know what I told Vasquez. But, well…perhaps ‘
finished
' was something of an exaggeration…”

“Filippo, is there a problem with it?”

He sighed and shook his head. “No. I must simply apply myself to it a little more diligently. It is not difficult, merely intensely boring.”

Maria looked into her husband's entirely familiar face and, with a pinprick of shock, felt Filippo's gloomy anticipation of tedium as though it were her own—the feeling moved within her as if she had occasioned it herself—and in a buffeting tangle of sensation, for a fractured second, she
was
her husband. She saw him from the inside outward. All Filippo's frustrations, his boredom, his guilt at his lies and deceit, his desire for her, the despairing anger Maria saw in him when he came to her bedchamber on those occasions when he could not contain himself—it all screamed through her mind and her body, passing so swiftly that as fast as she acknowledged the sensation, it was gone. Shuddering in its wake, though, was a new and raw appreciation of Filippo's vulnerability.

And to her intense surprise, at that moment, she wanted very much to lean across the table, hold his face in her hands, and kiss him.

But she couldn't move.

“I'll expect you in time for a meal tonight then,” she said.

***

The wind was from the southwest, and a smell of wet ropes and fish from the wharves pricked at Maria's nostrils as she began to walk alone toward San Giacomo degli Spagnoli. Filippo had left the house; Emilia was preparing a meal in the kitchen and now wanted to spend a few moments alone in the church to try to settle her unquiet thoughts.

There were times when her sister's company became irksome even to her: she knew that Filippo struggled to contain his dislike of Emilia and, while Maria loved her sister and was still glad she had been able to offer her a home, she could easily understand why another might find her company difficult. Emilia was intractably conservative in her tastes and, raised as Maria had been by the passion-fearing Sisters, found any display of emotion unpleasant and upsetting. Maria wondered again, as she had done the other day, if Emilia was concealing as much turbulence and confusion behind her expressionless face as she herself hid so carefully inside her own dignified exterior. She did not feel close enough to Emilia to ask her.

Maria held in one hand her copy of
The
Book
of
the
City
of
Ladies,
which she hoped to read for a while after she had finished at San Giacomo. She needed to be quite alone for a while. She had little more than a few pages left—the red calfskin strip now lay almost flush with the back cover of the book—and she wanted to find a quiet spot where she could finish the story without fear of interruption.

She reached the church, opened the door, and stepped into the gloom. No more than a handful of silent figures sat or stood dotted around the cavernous interior as Maria walked up to a bench toward the front and knelt down. The young priest who normally heard her confession walked across the width of the church, peered down the length of the building, and quickened his pace. She placed her book on the seat, clasped her hands, and rested her forehead against her knuckles; her elbows pressed painfully into the wood of the pew in front, and her crossed thumbs pushed up against the bridge of her nose. Eyes tightly closed, she tried to contain her fragmented thinking and order it all into something resembling a prayer, but the words and images danced before her, mocking her attempts and refusing to be disciplined.

Maria felt tears sting behind her eyes as anger began to seep through her. Anger with Filippo for wanting so frequently what she found so difficult to give him—and then for obtaining it elsewhere. Anger with the Sisters for so effectively having bricked her up inside her own body—and anger with herself for suddenly, after so many years, needing to break through those fortifications, but so pitifully lacking the means to do so. Anger with God for playing such thoughtless games with her emotions. It all churned in her chest and up into her throat; she swallowed quickly to suppress a scream. She pressed so hard against her forehead with her clasped thumbs that it hurt and she began to feel sick.

After a moment's acute discomfort, she lifted her head. Several people had seated themselves near her while she had been struggling. With a needling start of recognition, Maria saw that one of them was the beautiful woman with the braided hair whom she had seen last time she had made her confession. The woman's head was bent over her hands: the elaborate decoration around the upper edge of her dress gave to her neck a sense of slender vulnerability.

Her own attempts at prayer quite forgotten, Maria watched the woman again for some moments, fascinated by her air of exotic opulence. She stared at her, awed by the richness of the fabrics the woman wore, fascinated by the brazen glitter of the ornaments adorning her hair, neck, ears, and hands, charmed by the voluptuousness of the painted mouth as the woman silently murmured her clearly heartfelt orations. Then, catching the baleful eye of a black-clad old crone across the aisle, Maria felt herself blush, embarrassed to have been caught so openly watching another penitent.

She decided to leave.

Standing, she edged herself out into the aisle, bobbed a hasty genuflection, and left the building,
The
Book
of
the
City
of
Ladies
held in one hand. She would, she thought, finish her reading out here, in the cool of the shadow of the church.

A low stone bench stood along a nearby wall, and on this Maria seated herself. She opened the book and counted the pages she had left to finish. Less than a dozen. That would not take her long. Tucking the calfskin strip inside the cover, she leaned back and began to read.

But she had barely completed a page when a flash of vivid red caught her eye and she looked up.

The opulent woman was leaving the church.

She was tall, Maria thought, struck by how slow and careful and elegant the woman's gait seemed; the crimson skirts billowed out behind her as she walked, like the sails of a galleon. Maria stared as the woman turned left and began to make her way toward the top corner of the square. It seemed as though it would be no more than seconds before she was lost from sight, when in an instant she tripped, stumbled, and fell heavily forward, sprawling full-length upon the ground with an audible grunt.

Maria stood up.

The woman sat up awkwardly and pulled at her skirts; she fumbled with the fabric and then took out from under the material a shoe, unlike any shoe Maria had ever seen. Its upper was of scarlet leather—an embroidered slipper—but it was the sole that astonished. Some six or seven inches in depth, the gilded sole was a slim-waisted column, shaped like an elongated hourglass. Maria was astounded that anyone could walk at all in such footwear and wondered why any woman would choose to wear something that so effectively hobbled her movements. She was not surprised this woman had fallen.

And then she saw her face: there were tears in the dark-rimmed eyes, and her mouth was twisted in pain. Several people passed her: some stared, a couple sneered, but none offered assistance. Dropping her book as she ran, Maria hurried across the square and crouched down. “Are you hurt, Signora? I saw you fall, and…”

“It's nothing,” the woman said with her eyes fixed upon her foot. “I have wrenched my ankle, no more. It's my stupid
chopines
—they are quite impossible to walk in. I hate the damned things—in fact, I think I'll throw them away when I get home. But—” She hesitated. “Thank you for your kindness, Signora.” She gave Maria a damp smile, wiped her eyes, and stood clumsily, bending to pick up her discarded shoes. Without the impractical
chopines
, the skirts of the woman's red dress trailed on the ground, and she seemed dramatically diminished by the reduction in her height.

“There. I don't think I have damaged anything too badly,” she said and took a tentative step. With a gasped-in yelp, however, she stopped quickly, her face pinched into a grimace.

“Oh, Signora—” Maria said, stepping forward again.

“Oh,
merda! Cazzo!
I am so sorry…do you think you might be able to help me over to where I can sit down?” the woman said.

Maria was startled by the profanity, but nonetheless placed one of the woman's arms around her shoulders, and, putting her own arm around the woman's back, held her by the elbow. She was aware of a faint smell of peaches. Together they walked with difficulty back to the stone bench, the woman limping badly. Maria helped her to sit. As she slid her arm from where it had been around the woman's waist, Maria saw
The
Book
of
the
City
of
Ladies
, spine up on the ground a few yards away across the square. The red calfskin strip lay nearby.

“Oh! Excuse me a moment, Signora—I must rescue my book.” She hurried over and picked it up, tenderly smoothing the ruffled pages. Bending and snatching up the leather strip as she returned, she hurried back to the stone bench and sat next to the voluminous red damask skirts.

“I'm sorry. Is your book badly damaged?”

“No. It is of no consequence—I have almost finished it, anyway.”

“What is its name?”

Maria showed her the book.

“And its subject?”

Maria smiled then and said with enthusiasm, “Well…it was written by a woman, and among other things, she describes the creation of an imaginary city for virtuous women and—oh, it's wonderful, Signora—she praises the many contributions women have made—and make still—to…to civilization. It is a remarkable book and most reassuring—I have nearly finished it.”

“Could I see?” the woman said.

Maria held it out to her. She watched as her companion opened the cover and began to flick through the first few pages, frowning in concentration as her eyes moved across what she read. She nodded a few times, as though she agreed with the sentiments she saw expressed, and then, apparently startled, drew in a sharp breath.

“Signora, is your foot hurting?”

A shake of the head.

Maria said, “What troubles you?”

The woman did not answer; she continued reading.

Maria stared at her, watching her absorption in the words she read. She looked again at the flamboyant red dress, at the woman's braided hair and painted face. She took in once more the bright stones on fingers, ears, and throat. The discarded
chopines
suddenly took on a new significance, and something hot slid over itself in Maria's belly as she realized what this woman's occupation must be. An occupation that would most probably be decidedly unwelcome in the City of Ladies. She recalled a line from the beginning of the book:
Only
ladies
who
are
of
good
reputation
and
worthy
of
praise
will
be
admitted
into
this
city. To those lacking in virtue, its gates will remain forever closed.

A jumble of disturbing images danced into Maria's mind and she was profoundly shocked to realize that what she felt was not disapproval. It was envy.

Her face flamed.

The woman looked up and saw her embarrassment. “I'm so sorry, Signora,” she said, pushing the book back into Maria's hands.

“Why do you apologize?”

The woman hesitated. “I'm imagining…by your expression…that…that you have just worked out my occupation,” she said. “And that perhaps, having determined what it is that I do, you no longer wish me to look at your book.”

Maria felt her color deepen still further. She put a hand up to the side of her face, the heel of her palm across her mouth. And then an idea struck her. This woman would know. Maria drew in a breath, held it for a moment. She might never have the opportunity again. She had to do it. Her need for information became so intense she felt quite breathless. She felt her mouth opening and closing, but the words seemed to have jammed somewhere at the back of her throat; it was as though they had braced themselves against eviction and were determined to stay put. There was a long silence. Maria saw the woman shift her weight uncomfortably and wince as, presumably, the twisted ankle pained her.

She felt a tear spill over and run down her cheek. The woman reached out and took her hand, but, embarrassed, Maria pulled away from her grasp. The woman said, “Signora, what is it? What's the matter? Why are you crying? Is it something I said?”