The Watercolourist Read online

  Bianca is bothered by the chatter and anxious about the disappearance of the ghost, who has shown her art by vanishing. But she is done with thinking about it. She feels silly pondering such a futile curiosity. And in any case, there are other things that need to be done: in the kitchen, the nursery and the study. The children wail, the guests wine and dine, the help swear and complain, the owners give orders, and then they all sit down to tea. Flowers blossom and wither. She needs to pick them while she can.

  Manina béla, con to soréla,

  ’ndo sito sta’?

  Dalla mama, dal papà.

  Cossa t’hai dato?

  Pane, late,

  Gategategategate . . .

  Little hand,

  With your sister,

  Where did you go?

  To Mama and to Papa.

  What did they give you?

  Bread and milk and

  Tickle tickle tickle . . .

  ‘Me too, me too.’

  ‘Do it to me, too.’

  The children stretch out their arms so she can tickle their palms. The house seems full of them, a centipede of little hands. All the children are desperate to be distracted from the boring rain.

  ‘What does it mean though, Miss Bianca? We don’t understand.’

  She speaks in rhymes from her ‘recent childhood’, as Innes calls it.

  ‘Will you do it to me, too?’

  Silly Tommaso, he always makes his way into the nursery hoping for an escape. He gets down on his knees, and then onto all fours like an animal, making the children laugh. Bianca giggles but then shoos him away.

  ‘We are busy learning,’ she says.

  ‘I don’t see Nanny. Did you lock her inside a trunk?’ he asks.

  It is a tempting hypothesis and brings titters all round. Tommaso, still on all fours, moves backwards out of the room, swinging his head like a loyal dog.

  ‘Now we’re going to play dressing up,’ she says.

  ‘That’s for girls,’ the boys complain.

  ‘Fine. You may be excused. Should I ask Tommaso to accompany you?’

  ‘Nooo, we’ll stay.’

  ‘Miss Bianca, Miss Bianca, what should we do? Who should we be?’

  Bianca considers.

  ‘You should dress up as the person you most want to be.’

  They all have good ideas and run off to prepare. Pietro and Enrico grab two old capes – whether they are uniforms or costumes it is hard to say – and twirl them around themselves like toreadors. The girls laugh.

  ‘I’m ready!’ Pia announces from her hiding place. Minna incites her to come out by clapping her hands and cheering her on. Bianca looks at Pia’s creation. She cannot believe that the girl can have made it herself. She wears a headdress of dress swords that looks almost dangerous. She is like a peasant girl from another era, ready for a country wedding.

  ‘What do you mean, another era?’ mumbles Minna when Bianca says this. ‘What peasant girl? She’s a spinner, can’t you tell? That’s a party outfit that the ladies who work with silk wear. My mother comes from those parts. I took it out of my hope chest, but don’t tell anyone. And be careful it doesn’t get ruined, Pia – I’m going to wear it on my wedding day.’

  ‘If anyone ever wants you,’ Pia says, teasing.

  Minna frowns seriously. Then she bursts out laughing and everyone laughs with her. Meanwhile Pia, dressed as the bride, looks down and smiles to herself. This is a performance and she is every bit the young actress.

  Minna disappears behind the Chinese screen while the smaller girls fumble through a chest of hats, scarves, vests and old corsets. In between oohs and aahs and a couple of sneezes, they transform into other characters, and run to look at themselves in the mirror. They laugh with the complicit goodness of sisters when they get along.

  ‘Have you really never played this game?’ Bianca asks in surprise. ‘We used to play dressing up all the time.’

  She was the first one to explore the attic, probing the wide, damp space, with its tall, narrow windows that open out onto the world like eyes. She went back there a second time, with more ease. In the dresser she chose, among other things, this armful of clothes. When she asked permission to use them, Donna Clara only shrugged. ‘I know nothing. I have never been up there. You’re free to take whatever you want.’

  Her accomplices, Minna and Pia, help her choose the strangest and most attractive items; they beat the dust out of them with broomsticks, lay them out in the sun, then hide them from the little girls to ensure they are a surprise. The scheme has worked.

  Minna keeps chatting in that little voice she uses when she is excited.

  ‘And who will the groom be, Pia? Shall we hand you over to Pietro or to Enrico? Or would you prefer Luigi, the bell ringer?’

  This is followed by much laughter. Luigi is a scrawny teenage boy who gets pulled upwards every time he rings the church bell. Pia pointed him out to Bianca once, as she was guiding her to an alcove inside the sacristy.

  Finally, Minna appears from behind the screen, standing with her arms crossed and a smug expression across her face. The breeches and lace shirt transform her into a charming young man.

  ‘It is I who want you to be my wife, my damsel! Will you accept my offer?’

  She falls to her knees at the feet of the bride, who clenches her shawl tightly around her, feigning reluctance. Everyone begins to laugh, and then suddenly the laughter fades and the bride falls silent. Pia stares at the doorway.

  ‘What happened?’ Minna asks.

  When Pia doesn’t answer, they turn around one by one. The girl looks down. Bianca first sees his reflection in the mirror, the rest of his dark clothes blending into the gloom of the hallway behind him. She turns to face him, ready to defend the children.

  ‘We were only playing,’ she says but her tone comes out more apologetic than she would like. They aren’t doing anything wrong; this is the playroom, and it is raining outside.

  Don Titta doesn’t say a thing. It is as though he is hypnotized by Pia. The girl looks at her master with a serenity that could be mistaken for arrogance. Bianca wants to interrupt the exchange. She is afraid Pia will be punished for her impudence. But the master continues to stare at her, his head tipped to the side like a painter studying his model, thoughtful and detached.

  Matilde interrupts the silence and hugs her father.

  ‘You see how pretty I am?’

  Don Titta finally snaps out of his daze and holds out his arms to pick up the little one, who pushes her curls back with both her hands to make herself more attractive.

  ‘I’m dressed as a valet, can you tell?’ She wiggles her feet in their blue silk slippers. ‘I also have a feathered cap . . .’

  She pulls away from his grasp to go and get her hat. In all the playing, it has rolled under the sofa.

  Still, Don Titta is silent. Bianca doesn’t know what to say. She wants him to leave and take the awkwardness with him. And finally that is what he does, without even a goodbye.

  Liberated from his presence, the playroom seems more spacious, almost luminous. It looks like the sky beyond the glass window is finally lifting too. Minna holds out her hands to the other girls.

  ‘Let’s play Ring-a-Ring o’ Roses.’

  And whilst they sing the song, a little out of tune, Bianca remembers how they played on that first day, when she had just arrived, before Pia had entered the picture and everything had seemed so innocent, so pure. It’s not Pia’s fault, of course. She sings loudly in ignorant bliss, her cheeks as pink as a bride’s. Then she leans towards Francesca, and then to Matilde, and whispers something in their ears, obtaining muffled laughter in return. She frees her hands from her playmates’ and places them on her hips. And in an instant, she returns to a country girl, her feet moving in a complicated dance. She is talented. Everyone slows and then stops to watch her in awe. The swords in her hair tremble with every jump, capturing the soft light of the candles. She dances as though she has no memories, as if s
he is alone under the dark summer sky, listening only to the music inside her head, happy and free.

  ‘Will you also include their meanings?’

  Bianca hates being watched while she is working. She could shoo away the children or Nanny but not Donna Clara. So she pretends not to hear, hoping that the lady will change the topic or wander off. But she remains.

  ‘You should. A yellow rose for jealousy, a red rose for passion, a white rose for innocence, a lilac rose for excitement. I’m quite good, aren’t I? Like mother, like son.’

  The children laugh with their grandmother without fully understanding the conversation, giggling only because she does. Enrico reaches for a piece of charcoal, Giulietta smacks his fingers, he growls like a dog, and Nanny clucks her tongue in disapproval. Bianca ignores them and keeps on drawing. Donna Clara continues.

  ‘The secret messages in colours. What was it? Mallow for understanding, tuberose for delight, myrtle for infidelity?’

  ‘What about daisies?’ Matilde asks, holding out a bunch of wilted daisies in her clenched fist.

  ‘Innocence, little one. It’s your very own flower.’

  Bianca puts the finishing touches on the fuchsia (for frugality) and then gives up, letting go of her pastel somewhat brusquely. It rolls to the edge of the table, wavers a little, and stops. Francesca holds out her hand but there is nothing to rescue.

  ‘No, I don’t believe those things,’ Bianca says. ‘I can’t. Flowers, the poor creatures, are faithful because they depend on our care. But they are also traitors, because so little is needed to take them away from us: frost, wind, a worm. They do not have a brain. They only have their costume. It is we who must learn to be better: constant, patient and helpful. We mustn’t expect anything in return, only the gift of their beauty when it comes.’

  A shadow appears in the doorway of the greenhouse.

  ‘Well said, Miss Bianca.’

  The voice of Don Titta makes her jump. The children turn to swarm around him. Bianca makes an effort to clean her fingers with a rag. The poet crosses his arms and leans against the door. Innes stands just a couple of steps behind.

  ‘At ease,’ he continues. He studies her. ‘Look at what an interesting colouring this work gives you: sky blue and crimson hands, as if you have been catching butterflies. Something I advise against doing, Pietro, or,’ he adds, ‘I will get very angry. Do you understand?’

  Although Pietro hasn’t considered the idea beforehand, he is now smirking, and runs off to prepare for the cruelty to come. Bianca wipes an indigo stain from her palm; it doesn’t want to go away, she will need to use soap. Donna Clara interrupts.

  ‘Surely the lists of plants are much lovelier now, in any case? Before they were only black, or black with red ink for the French grafts. They reminded me of police rosters.’ She frowns. Her son ignores her and continues speaking to Bianca.

  ‘You are right to do as you do. He who soils his hands is the true gardener; anyone else is just a hobbyist.’ Bianca hides her fingers behind her back, aware of the dirt under her fingernails from where she sunk her fingers into the earth at the foot of the path in order to feel how warm and grainy and alive it was. Innes notices and smiles. Don Titta continues. ‘I will never be at your level. I am only a mere horticulturalist, a theoretician who ponders questions from behind a desk. We are in need of a modern-day Linnaeus to decide the names for all things green, so that they can be fixed forever, for everyone. I could seriously dedicate myself to that cause. What do you think, Innes? I suppose it, too, could be considered a form of unification.’

  ‘Well, if you ask me,’ Donna Clara interrupts, ‘when they’re on my plate and well cooked they’re one and the same. It’s the flavour that counts; do your treatises speak about this?’

  Innes rolls his eyes a little at Bianca, who would laugh but coughs instead.

  ‘Are you perhaps allergic to the leaves? That would be too bad, given your vocation. In any case, we have pickled snow peas for dinner tonight, not green beans. We have already finished those,’ Donna Clara concludes and begins to leave the greenhouse with the children.

  ‘Are you coming too, Papa?’ Francesca tugs on her father’s hand and he surrenders willingly, closing in on the procession with the little girl by his side, who is just happy to have him to herself.

  Bianca is left feeling unsettled. She wouldn’t mind continuing what she had set out to do but now she is distracted. Innes steps forward, leafs through the nearly complete master copy and nods.

  ‘This is a small masterpiece, Bianca. You truly are the lady of the flowers. You know them like you own them.’

  ‘I’d say the opposite is true: that they own me. Beginning with the fact that they take up all my time, all my enjoyment and, essentially, everything else. But let’s not talk about me. It’s boring. What about you? What are you master of? Tell me.’

  Innes sits on the elegant and uncomfortable chaise. He looks out of place; he is far more comfortable in a worn leather armchair, book in hand.

  ‘I don’t know, Bianca. I don’t know. I want what is not for me.’

  ‘Even philanthropists deserve to be happy,’ she jokes.

  ‘Oh, come now, don’t be naive,’ he says seriously. ‘One doesn’t deserve happiness; one takes hold of it when it comes along, if it comes along, out of pure luck. One takes a bite out of it like an unexpected fruit, knowing that it will never fill us up.’ His voice softens. ‘Don’t pay attention to me, please. Life will explain itself to you in due time, provided that you listen.’

  ‘I don’t like you when you’re serious.’

  ‘In the end,’ Innes continues, as if he hasn’t heard her, ‘no one said that happiness was the way out. I, for example, am happy with a far less resplendent gift – generosity.’

  ‘Giving or receiving?’

  ‘Bianca, Bianca, this is your biggest flaw. You couldn’t be light-hearted if you tried. Or maybe it’s a virtue. Your question is an important one but I am not going to give you an answer. Not now. It’s a beautiful afternoon. Will you come with me?’

  ‘What will that answer?’ Bianca asks, confused.

  ‘Your question, obviously.’

  They laugh together. She stands and they walk out, arm in arm, from the warm shelter to the perfect briskness of early evening.

  Bianca walks in the garden. She marvels over the shapes and colours of the vegetables poking out like jewels among the shrubs: the horns of the late courgette flowers, the red-faced cheeks of the tomatoes, the cardinal-vested aubergines. Without even thinking, she picks some of these fruits of the earth and puts them in the pocket of her apron. As she walks back towards Innes, she inhales the holy aroma of the rosemary that grows along the path and caresses it with her free hand.

  It is the scent, more than the gesture itself, that reawakens a vivid memory. She remembers strolling with her father in the Botanical Garden of Padua. They gave a few scudi to a monk so they could wander about, but he stood nearby and kept an eye on them.

  ‘I could walk away with a cutting in my parasol,’ joked Bianca.

  Her father, using his body as a guard, picked a little rosemary branch from a bush and placed it in the parasol’s folds, making her giggle.

  ‘Who is simpler, the herbs or the people who grow them?’ she asked in all seriousness. She was only fifteen and they had just begun their trip. She had never had her father’s full attention before. It was a privilege that never tired her, and in exchange she offered her unconditional attention, like a student in the presence of a revered tutor, overflowing with love.

  ‘A good question,’ he replied. ‘I believe the two things go together: if you aren’t pure at heart, you will contaminate the plants that you care for. If you aren’t simple, you cannot possibly be pure at heart. Simple herbs are those that cure ailments and restore health. The monk is surely a simple person or else he wouldn’t be standing there in his sandals. He would be in a hall full of frescos, in a crimson robe, or on his way to Rome. But I am certai
n that he is a happy man even without all of those other colours.’ He added, ‘Your name is Bianca because we wanted you to be simple, essential and pure. Because we wanted you to choose your own colours.’

  The gravel crunched underfoot. Gusts of wind made purple petals rain down from a tree, like a child throwing confetti into the air.

  ‘Do you want me to become a painter?’ Bianca asked, pausing and turning to face her father. ‘What if I am not capable?’

  ‘Don’t be so literal, Bianca. I mean you should be something different, something greater.’

  She blushed and felt simple-minded, but then understood.

  ‘You mean like choosing the colours of a flag or a banner?’

  ‘Precisely. Warriors of certain tribes in North America paint their faces before going into combat to show everyone the colours of their courage. There’s no need to paint your cheeks with your own colours. The important thing is to recognize that you have them.’

  On that same visit she saw a sycamore tree. When she asked the monk about it, he bragged as if it was his very own baby.

  ‘It’s over one hundred and thirty years old.’

  Bianca wondered how he could possibly know this. Maybe someone in the seventeenth century had taken it upon himself to record the date in the register. ‘Planted a shoot of Platanus orientalis L. It looks promising; we will make it the Methuselah of our domestic forest.’

  The monk kept on speaking in a pedantic tone.

  ‘As you can see, the trunk is hollow. This is due to a bolt of lightning that struck the tree when it was a hundred years old, but did not kill it. Indeed, it still bears leaves and fruits and seeds every year.’

  ‘So it’s a plant without a soul?’ Bianca asked her father, wanting to make the monk feel uncomfortable. He did, in fact, blush and tried to come up with an explanation.

  ‘The spirit is in the leaves, flowers and fruits. The spirit is not the heart of the tree, I mean. The tree has no heart.’