The Girl With the Painted Face (18 page)

‘Lift your arms up again for a moment, then.’ Sofia raises her arms, and Lidia takes a handful of fabric on either side of her.

‘If you can just pinch the fabric roughly in where it needs to be,’ Sofia says, ‘and pin it so that the excess cloth is still sticking outwards…’

Lidia obliges, then unfastens the laces again and helps Sofia to take the bodice off.

Sofia, in shift and skirt, holds up the pinned bodice and, frowning, examines where the pins have been placed. ‘Do you think it’d be possible to set up a table?’ she says. ‘It’ll be so much easier to do this if I can lay it flat.’

‘I’ll ask Vico.’

A table is found. Sofia, having detached the laced sleeves from the bodice, lays it out flat and quickly repositions Lidia’s hastily placed pins so that they mark the line of the new seams-to-be with more accurate definition. Then she turns the bodice inside out.

‘Oh, I do wish I still had my scissors,’ she says with a sigh.

‘Scissors?’ Lidia has seated herself on the back steps of the wagon and is eating a torn hunk of bread.

‘Mmm. I used to have a beautiful pair of tiny spring-scissors, made of steel. My mother gave them to me when I was a little girl and they were very small, very lovely and sharp as a razor. Just perfect for snipping away even the smallest of stitches. They had belonged to my grandmother before. But thanks to that horrible man in Modena, I left the city in such a panic that I had no time to collect anything – and my darling scissors were left behind.’ Picturing her mother, she feels the familiar sharp pang at the thought of her loss.

‘We’ve only got the one pair of shears,’ Lidia says, pulling a doubtful face and shaking her head.

‘Yes, I know. They’re good and sharp, but they’re much too big for this job. They’ll cut away the excess cloth nicely when I’m done, but this’ll take a knife. I’ll go and ask Cosima.’

‘No, don’t worry, I’ll get it.’

Lidia returns in a moment with a short-bladed knife with a carved wooden handle. Testing the blade against the ball of her thumb, Sofia smiles her approval.

Pins in place, she sits back down on an upturned barrel. Bunching the fabric of the bodice in her left hand, holding it up so that the sunlight falls on the stitched seams, Sofia fits the point of the little knife under the first stitch and flicks upwards, slitting through the thread with ease; then, working her way down first one side and then the other, she unpicks the two seams.

Repinning the bodice to fit her takes Sofia and Lidia a few moments of twisting and turning, arm-raising and pin-tweaking; once satisfied that it is now snug and comfortable, Sofia bundles it up in her arms and sits down on her barrel. Threading a needle, she tacks the two new seams in place with long stitches; then she takes the pins out and pushes them back into the waxed paper, returning the paper to the little box.

As always when she sews, her thoughts begin to wander. To Mamma, of course. Poor Mamma; Sofia wonders if she will ever lose the images burned into her memory on that last, dreadful day. What would Mamma think of her now: sitting here, stitching a dress in which she is going to walk onto a stage – as an actress? Her heart jumps at the very thought of it. She wishes, perhaps more than ever, that her mother were still here. How very much she would love to be able to tell her about finding Niccolò and being introduced to the troupe, about learning to act – and most of all about Beppe and her fragile, burgeoning hopes. What would Mamma have thought of him, she wonders?

She has been busily stitching for some time, and is now alone, humming to herself. Lidia has gone to help Cosima prepare the evening meal. One side seam is complete, the lining has been cut and fitted and neatly hemmed into place, and she is halfway through the second side, when a soft cough startles her.

She looks up.

Beppe is standing near, watching her intently; she has no idea how long he has been there. Seeing him, her cheeks flame and she puts a hand to her hair, which she knows is tangled and unkempt. She fiddles a curl back behind one ear.

‘I’ve just been into town and I found something I thought you might like,’ Beppe says. ‘At the market.’ He has a paper packet in his hands.

‘For me?’

‘Yes. Look.’ Opening the packet, he shows Sofia the contents: two golden rings of what looks like gleaming and sugared bread. ‘
Ciambelle
,’ he says.

‘What are
ciambelle
? They look lovely.’

‘You’ve never had a
ciambella
?’ Beppe sounds astonished. ‘Put that down for a moment’ – he nods at the bodice – ‘and we’ll have one each. You’ll love it.’

Sofia reaches across and lays the bodice on the table. Sitting cross-legged on the ground near her feet, Beppe hands her one of the rings. It is warm, and the sugar dusted over its surface glitters in the sunlight. Lifting it to her nose, Sofia sniffs it; she can smell yeast and butter, a sharp edge of lemon, and another sweet smell she does not recognize.

‘Go on – try it!’ Beppe says quietly, and she takes a bite.

It is delicious: doughy, softer and sweeter than bread. Smiling as she feels the sugar sticking to her lips, she raises a hand to brush it away, but Beppe leans quickly towards her and catches her wrist. ‘No, stop! See how many bites you can take without brushing away the sugar or licking your lips,’ he says, and his eyes are dancing. He is watching her mouth. ‘I’ll do it too. Let’s see if either of us can eat a whole
ciambella
without licking.’

Sofia laughs. She takes another bite, and Beppe too begins to eat.

It is an almost impossible task, she quickly discovers. At every bite more sugar clings to her lips and the temptation to lick it away soon becomes almost unbearable. Beppe’s mouth, too, is now covered with the stuff, and as she watches him struggling to resist the inevitable, it occurs to Sofia that she would perhaps prefer to lick the sugar from
his
mouth rather than her own.

This thought makes her feel as though her insides are dissolving.

Thus momentarily distracted, she forgets to resist, and Beppe laughs as she licks her lips. ‘It’s impossible, isn’t it?’ he says, licking his own, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and then reaching over to brush the remaining sugar from Sofia’s face. At his touch, her smile fades and she holds her breath, her gaze flicking from his eyes to his mouth and back.

Beppe too looks suddenly serious.

They stare at each other for several long seconds.

He moves a little closer and Sofia can feel his breath warm on her face. Tilting his face to one side, he touches her lips with his own, and the grains of sugar are gritty between them. Then a shout of laughter from within the wagon breaks the fragile threads that have quickly spun out between them and Beppe steps back.

Looking down at the remains of the
ciambella
in his hand and holding up the last little piece, he puts it into Sofia’s mouth, brushing the crumbs of sugar away with great tenderness.

‘Thank you,’ she whispers. ‘That was lovely.’ She is not sure whether she means the
ciambella
or the touch of Beppe’s fingers and lips on her face. ‘I should finish my seams.’

Beppe nods, his expression still solemn. ‘I’ll fetch you something to drink. They make you thirsty, do
ciambelle
.’ He sucks his fingers and thumb, one by one, still watching Sofia, then turns and walks away towards where Cosima and Lidia are preparing the food.

Her heart beating fast, her thoughts whirling, Sofia wipes her fingers carefully on a cloth, then picks up the part-mended bodice and begins once more to stitch. Her hands are trembling.

14

Malalbergo, not far from Bologna

It is nearing midday when the wagons of the Coraggiosi rumble up into the piazza in the centre of the little town of Malalbergo, some miles north of Bologna. The early autumn light is bright and yellow, and the shadows of the wagons have deepened to purplish-blue blots, distorting around the wheels and under the bellies of the horses as they pick their way over the uneven surfaces of the roads.

A small but cheerful crowd has come out to greet the new arrivals: perhaps fifty or sixty people have clustered in groups along the road leading into the piazza, and the Coraggiosi wave and smile in acknowledgement of the welcome. Beppe and Vico are tumbling and clowning out in front as usual, and Cosima and Angelo, on their pretty ponies, are trotting neatly behind the wagons, scattering rose petals by the handful. Sofia, much to her delight, is wearing the newly altered grey dress and walking just behind Beppe and Vico, waving and smiling, and ‘shooing’ the two men away when they double back and try to pester her, much to the amusement of the watching crowd. Lidia, Agostino, Giovanni Battista and Federico, driving the wagons, are calling out the details of the coming performance.

Every now and again, Beppe catches Sofia’s eye and her heart turns over. He is wearing his black mask now, and it is impossible to determine his expression, but the kisses he has blown her and the moment just now when he came close to her and whispered in her ear – ‘
You look so beautiful
’ – have sent her pulse rate soaring and she is finding it increasingly hard to concentrate on staying in character.

There is a little more than an hour until it all begins. The stage is up, the properties are in place and a couple of tables and several benches have been set up in the space between two wagons, where the Coraggiosi have begun to prepare. Lanterns have been lit, for the light is poor this afternoon, and everyone is busy getting ready to paint their faces and put on their costumes.

‘You’re so lucky with your hair,
cara
,’ Lidia says from her place on the bench next to Sofia. ‘I wish mine were curly like yours. Then I wouldn’t need…’ She pats an almost black, tightly curled, brightly beribboned pile of wool which lies limply on the table near to where she is sitting. ‘It’s so hot and scratchy. Now listen – we do each other’s faces quite often, as we only have the one glass mirror. It’s Cosima’s and she hates to share it.’

Sofia looks across to where Cosima, hair scraped back behind a ribbon, is peering into a gilt-framed looking glass, frowning and poking at her chin with a finger.

‘Ago bought it for her in Venezia a couple of years ago.’ Lidia smiles at Sofia as she lays out an array of little earthenware pots, glass jars, bowls, scraps of sponge and torn squares of linen. ‘All the other mirrors we have are metal, and not much better than useless.’ She flaps a small square of polished steel towards Sofia. ‘Would you like me to do your face for you? It’s not that easy – not until you get used to it.’

Sofia opens her mouth to say yes please, when a noise startles her. She turns around; Beppe is standing behind her. ‘I’ll do Sofia,’ he says, raising an eyebrow.

Lidia smothers a smirk and Beppe shoves her in the shoulder with the heel of his hand. ‘Don’t you start – apart from anything else, unlike you, I don’t have my own face to do, do I?’ He raises a hand from which is dangling his black leather mask.

‘Do you want to use my paints? I can make room.’ Lidia starts to shift along, but Beppe shakes his head.

‘Thank you but no; I have some things out in the wagon which will do very nicely.’

Sofia puts her hands to her hair, fingering the untidy braids she made that morning and intending to make a start upon untangling them before Beppe returns, but he says, ‘Your hair can wait a minute. Come on, lovely girl, come with me and help me find them. We’re on in little more than an hour.’

Her heart jumping as he reaches for her hand, she gets to her feet.

‘Things? What things?’ Lidia is clearly curious. ‘What are you talking about?’

Beppe grins. ‘Oh… just some things,’ he says cheerfully. ‘Can I have a couple of your sponges when we get back, though,
cara
?’

Lidia nods, her wish for further information transparently obvious, but, jerking his head as an invitation to Sofia to follow him, Beppe taps the side of his nose with his finger, grins and set off towards the back of the smallest wagon, carrying one of the lanterns.

The interior of the smallest and shabbiest of the carts is cramped but neatly appointed. A bunk-like bed runs across the end furthest from the entrance, screened from the rest of the space by a faded curtain, which just now is pulled back and fastened with a ragged cord. Painted cupboards line both sides of the wagon up to about knee-height: these, Sofia always thinks, must once have depicted bright scenes of commedia performances, but after many years the pictures have chipped and scratched, and only the odd arm and hand and the bright splash of an islanded face are visible. Stacked on top of the cupboards are boxes and bags, poles and hooks, waxed paper packets and rolls of coloured cloth. An assortment of costumes hangs on hooks from the roof of the wagon, held back against the sides behind taut-pulled horizontal cords.

Beppe puts his mask down on the nearest cupboard top and Arlecchino’s carved leather face grins at them, watching them both with what appears to be a rather lewd curiosity.