The Watercolourist Page 14

  ‘What should I do with my eyes?’

  ‘Do as you please. Keep them open and you’ll see green. Keep them closed, and you won’t see a thing.’

  Giulietta goes down and then comes right back up, coughing and rubbing her eyelids.

  ‘I have water in my nose!’ she complains.

  ‘Pinch it closed,’ Pia says and again shows her how.

  The little girl makes another attempt, this time with her nose pinched. When she resurfaces she is smiling.

  ‘I saw green, I saw green!’

  Matilde, still in Bianca’s arms, moves her tiny feet back and forth in excitement, splashing rhythmically.

  Francesca copies her older sister.

  ‘I saw a fish!’ she exclaims as she resurfaces.

  Everyone laughs. Above them, the sun toys with the leaves. Splashes of light pass through the branches, rest on the surface of the brook, and then disappear. There is no noise, only the humming of cicadas and the slow swishing of water. They enjoy the moment silently. Bianca looks at all her companions’ faces, one by one, and their differing expressions of pleasure. Giulietta wears a concentrated smile, trying hard not to forget a thing. Francesca, though, smiles widely and holds tightly to Minna’s hand. Minna gazes up at the sky, now a light blue above the leaves. Matilde looks serious, her eyes large, dilated by wonder.

  And then, just like that, the quiet moment ends. Pia, who Bianca now notices is actually quite curvaceous and not so little, pulls herself up the bank, takes the garland she has left there, and crowns herself with it. She laughs and goes under the water again, kicking her feet and splashing the other girls, who shield themselves with their hands.

  Pia stands up in the brook, combing back her hair with her fingers, pulling it away from her face in an elegant motion. The little ones copy her. It is then that Bianca notices the resemblance.

  It is in the shape of her head and her facial structure, and it is shockingly apparent.

  The perplexity on Bianca’s face must be evident.

  ‘What’s wrong, Miss Bianca? You’ve gone all white,’ Pia says, then giggles. She laughs cheerfully, and so do the others, and then suddenly none of them can stop.

  After their outing, the only trace of the crime is a few white shirts and knickers hung out to dry on the clothes line behind the kitchens, bottoms up, like ghosts dangling from the trees. Nanny, who has no idea what has happened, is surprised by the girls’ fatigue, and she comes down to chat to Bianca after having put them to bed.

  ‘They were dead tired and went to sleep immediately. If only they were always so cooperative. Ah, I see Ilide did some laundry?

  But, it’s not laundry day today . . .’

  Bianca and Minna look at each other conspiratorially. Pia is not there. She must have gone on one of her walks. The evening is mild and quiet. The half-moon hangs in the air, as bright as a lantern.

  The afternoon dip hasn’t been enough to satisfy Bianca. And so she retraces her steps back down the path that she, the girls and the maids took, but this time alone. The leaves shield the moonlight now and make it hard to see, but she knows the way. It is as if the smell of the water guides her – a green, pleasant, familiar and natural scent. Like her very own, within the folds of her sheets.

  This time, given that she is alone and darkness hides her, she removes all her clothes the way she used to do at home in the small swimming hole near the manor, which belonged to a conte who only left the house to go to church. It is dark and deserted. The water feels more daring, though, and it caresses every bit of her body, even the most hidden parts.

  The moon is high and the trees along the bank form a straight corridor, fringed only by some light branches. The moonlight casts parallel shapes on the black water. Bianca leans back, her feet anchored to the soft muddy ground, and looks up but doesn’t let herself go. It is as if she doesn’t want to lose control, abandon herself. She breathes in the perfume of the wet country night mixed with the velvet smell of the water. She feels good.

  Her hand brushes up against something. Tangled in a branch is Pia’s crown of flowers, still intact. Bianca frees the wreath and lets it float off. She follows it, moving her arms and legs gently, only enough to keep afloat. She allows herself to think about what she hasn’t had time to before, but which presses on her mind like a migraine. Is it conceivable? How can it be? But . . . the shape of her face. It certainly is possible. Everything about Pia’s history leads Bianca to believe that it is possible. It is strange, though, that the girl lives there, so close to him. Maybe it is chance. Or maybe it is a bolder way of challenging fate, displaying the fruit of the crime right under everyone’s noses. But whose fault is it, after all? Certainly not Don Titta’s. It is never a man’s fault. It must be the mother’s fault. But who is the mother? Is she still around, somewhere, or has she been forgotten like a minor historical figure? And when did it all happen? He came to Paris when he was twenty, Donna Clara said. Something must have happened at some point between the era of the curious child in the portrait and the twenty-year-old man going to meet his mother in Paris.

  No, it cannot be. It is too much like a romance novel, Bianca tries to reason. But . . . the likeness. If the others notice it, if they know . . . She has to make sure that Pia never removes her bonnet. No one can find out, no one can suspect a thing.

  Or maybe – the thought shoots across her brain in all clarity – everyone knows already. Yes, that’s it, Bianca thinks. It explains Donna Clara’s inexplicable surges of affection towards Pia, Minna’s hangdog gaze and cruel tongue, and the women’s gossip in the kitchen. What about the ghost, though? And the priest? Is he an accomplice, too? Is it possible?

  No, it cannot be. Perhaps she alone sees a resemblance because she has an outsider’s eye and is able to identify the invisible ties that connect different people, like a spider’s web. The others may never have noticed.

  Or maybe Bianca is imagining it all. It is just the excitement, the intense heat. It is her eagerness to put order into all the coincidences and mishaps she comes across, to frame them on the same canvas. As if classifying and understanding are one and the same.

  There is the sound of twigs snapping and then footsteps on leaves.

  ‘Who’s there?’ whispers Bianca. In the silence her voice is as loud as a scream.

  Nothing. It is a hare, or maybe one of those ferocious wild animals that besiege Minna’s dreams. Bianca lets herself go then, falling backwards, water filling her ears. She hears nothing more except for the far-away rumble of a much greater and deeper body of water, like the echo of the ocean. Even her body remembers her own lake. It is a different kind of memory from all others and it is reawakened by her every movement in the brook. The green water is cold against her skin. Algae move around at the bottom like the hair of the dead. She feels that good sort of melancholy that takes hold of her every time she remembers her home.

  There is another rustle, this time louder and closer. But Bianca doesn’t hear it. She floats on the water and stares at the moon. She doesn’t notice the shadow crouching among the bushes, watching her drift in the current. His gaze takes in her small breasts, the way her hair swirls around her head like a cloud, and her knees and feet poking out of the water.

  Part Two

  And then comes winter. Or rather, autumn arrives but it feels like winter. After a mild and colourful October, the skies become tinted with grey and vary only slightly in hue: pewter, stormy with a streak of blue, deep blue with leaden edges, steel, silver, iron and platinum. The temperature plunges. One morning, on waking, Bianca sees that the great lawn has turned completely white. It reflects the pale sky and promises only cold, not the joyful feeling of snow. Chilblains appear on Minna’s delicate fingers. Bianca takes it upon herself to cure them with a white paste she brought with her in a ceramic jar that has the consistency of artists’ gesso.

  ‘This is Serafina’s magic paste. Trust me, they will go away. You just need to be patient enough for your skin to absorb it.’


  Minna, at first suspicious, soon realizes her luck. She can think of nothing nicer than sitting in one of the pink pinstriped armchairs in the nursery and waving her hands in the air while the cream dries, without having to do a thing more. She doesn’t even have to bring the girls tea. Actually, the girls take it upon themselves to serve her tea, with all the clamour and ceremony and dangerous clinking of porcelain cups at risk.

  Minna’s miraculous healing from her chilblains and the teatime ritual are amongst the final events of their serene country life that year. The ladies decide, in a flash, that the change of seasons, though inevitable, is entirely unwelcome, and in response they want to close up the house and move back to the city. The poet seems unhappy with the decision and for some time he resists. Eventually, though, he surrenders to the fact that it is expensive to warm the entire household, worn down by the endless complaining of how they will be better off in the city, with the good fireplaces, fewer windows, and so on. Don Titta stays on a little longer after their departure with his faithful Tommaso, with the excuse of having to finish a commissioned ode that will pay many of the bills. He lets the caravan of women, children and luggage set off without him. Bianca suspects that the Big Bear only wants a bit of solitude; no one will deny him that. She has started calling him this in her head recently and in the fragmented letters she mentally writes to her father, a habit she hasn’t quite lost. Only common sense prevents her from taking up a quill and transforming everything into a real missive:

  Imagine a bear after hibernation, dearest Father, one of those bears you showed me when I was a little girl in that book of Russian fables, with dirty and rugged fur, a thin body, pinched muzzle, and drooping shoulders. This is the master of the house. He looks uncomfortable in his clothes, which seem to be cut for a man of another size. He will never become a bear of formidable stature and will always remain the thin being he became after his long sleep. He is always in search of something, with a great disquiet about him, so much so that it almost inspires compassion. You can see him wandering through the woods in search of honeycombs and fruit, and if he turns around, you will see the beast in those deep, dark eyes. You will be afraid of him, and fear and respect will linger on even when you see him play with his cubs on a sunny summer day. But it’s never really summer for him; it is always the beginning of spring. He has just awoken and he doesn’t understand or remember what sense there is in the world around him. Even when he is full, his eyes are hungry.

  Whatever reasons he has to stay on, the Big Bear proves shrewd in sparing himself the total chaos of their arrival in Milan. Although the domestic staff have been on alert for several days – the personal maids have gone on ahead to prepare – it feels as though they have reached a lodging that has not been lived in for a long time. The trip has been short, but it is next to impossible to gaze out at the road along the way because the children are so rowdy. They do nothing but scream and bicker, and Nanny soon gives up scolding them, leaving Bianca the duty of entertaining them with new games. It is foggy and there is little to see in the wide stretches of cold, open countryside. The streets of the city soon make themselves heard, though, through the sounds of hooves on cobblestones, bells, and the calling of tradesmen. The facade of their town house is dark and closed. It looks out onto a cobbled piazza and is surrounded by other homes in a similar style.

  The bleakness Bianca feels when she first sets eyes on the house is briefly interrupted by the grandness of the foyer and its red-carpeted staircase. But that soon fades as they make their way to the bedrooms, which are melancholy and look uninhabited. It is all so sadly chaste. Only the living room, with its frescos in pastel colours, has the guise of magnificence. The other ceilings are all dark, with solemn miniature decorations lost in the shadows. Not even the children’s cries of joy when they come across forgotten old toys and the shadows of their younger selves enliven the bleak atmosphere. The bedrooms that have been closed off for some time feel cold, as cold as the living rooms in the villa in Brusuglio, pierced by its numerous windows.

  And then, slowly but surely, things get better. The light becomes denser, enveloping the house. There is a milky glow on grey mornings and an uncertain light on clear ones. The rooms surrender and begin to welcome the intruders, to the point of finally allowing them to be lived in. The house is much smaller than the family’s country home and feels less mysterious. An opaque glass skylight situated above the staircase promises – and yet shuts off – the sky above. It makes the sky look small and square, especially when there isn’t a cloud in sight. The garden is lush and quite remarkable: palms, banana trees and oriental sweet-gum trees create an exotic backdrop. Two struggling grapevines recall the countryside, and a pair of very young magnolias, situated closer to the house, stand tall. Donna Clara’s bedroom is the most beautiful. It is on the second floor and looks out onto the garden, which, seen from above, winds between the other houses like an escape route towards nature. Her walls are adorned with a delicate motif of pink and pale scarlet rhombi and the furniture is exquisite. She cannot resist pulling Bianca in and dragging her over to a very small picture which might otherwise go unnoticed. It is of a putto, a child embroidered in petit point and protected by a glass cover.

  ‘Queen Marie Antoinette made that in prison, before they chopped her head off, poor thing,’ Donna Clara explains. ‘She gave it to one of her guardians as a gift and she in turn sold it to a friend of mine in Paris, who then gave it to me. Doesn’t it just give you the chills?’

  Yes, it is somewhat eerie to think of a gloomy jail cell where time can never move slowly enough, counting down to death. What a bizarre gift to give to a friend. Who knows what it means. There are no other macabre relics in that bedroom, only graceful watercolours depicting non-existent landscapes, crystal bottles on the older woman’s bureau, and the vague scent from open drawers.

  The servants’ quarters are at the narrow top of the house. It is as if that section of the building has nothing to do with the frilly bedrooms and elegant salons below. Bianca happens to walk into one of the rooms while she is exploring but leaves hastily, disturbed by the low ceilings, iron beds, rough wooden floors and damp. Her own bedroom is downstairs, near the others. It is a small beige room that has the bland feeling of a guest room. Tommaso and Innes sleep at the end of the dark corridor, far from the clamour of the others. Nanny has her own bedroom near the nursery that is furnished with salvaged furniture, but she doesn’t complain. She never complains.

  The room that attracts Bianca the most is Don Titta’s study. And even though it is completely out of bounds at all times, one day she sees the poet passing through the French window of his study into the garden, and decides to linger. It is dark inside, despite being morning. Rows of books line every surface. The bookshelves are protected by doors of mesh that absorb the meagre light. There is a sharp smell of old paper. The chimney is both dark and damp; a cylindrical heater of recent manufacture allows for modern heating, but in the absence of a legitimate inhabitant even this looks cumbersome and gloomy. On the desk of peeling Moroccan leather there are large ink spills, creating geographical maps of imaginary countries, and a pile of dark blue notebooks that Bianca recognizes from Brusuglio. On a tray rests a row of quills, ready for use. The inkpot is full. Instinctively she leans forward to smell its bitter aroma, which she has always liked. She looks for other clues about the poet, but the fragment of free wall space bears no paintings or images, just a crucifix engulfed by shadows and grief. Footsteps on the parquet floor in the hallway outside force her to leave quickly, and she pauses only when she arrives at the square of grass in the courtyard, which is still green but for the areas where dead leaves have now fallen.

  There are no large windows from which to throw all domestic tensions, but there is a great deal of coming and going, and doors opening onto other doors. It takes Bianca some time to realize how this concentric house works. It is a maze, a puzzle. Soon she finds her way, though, and is able to move around lightly and
silently, making the most of the play of doorways and using them to her advantage. She listens and overhears, and absolves herself by telling herself that although these exchanges aren’t meant for her ears, only chance has led her there.

  ‘Everyone knows that she was a whore when she was young.’

  ‘But she is so sanctimonious now. All she does is talk about her grandchildren, as if they were the stars in her sky.’

  ‘Well, anyone can feel regret. The beauty of religion is that there’s always a shortcut to forgiveness, even in the most extreme cases. She has carried herself forward, and has done things right. It’s not as if she waited for her deathbed to bury her past. She even had to take in that burden of a son. Luckily, her daughter-in-law brought in a dowry of sanctity and money in equal parts . . . I imagine the old lady will end up in Purgatory because she sure as hell won’t be singing psalms with the angels.’

  ‘And what makes you think you’ll end up in heaven to hear the singing?’

  ‘Me? I wasn’t talking about me. I wouldn’t mind a little atonement, actually: virtue is so boring . . .’

  In the city, the family receive more guests, and in addition to the usual ones there is a whole host of new characters. Tommaso, surrounded by these people, retreats into his shell like an irritated hermit crab, although he remains kind to Bianca, to the point of irritation. Once, he stopped to admire a drawing she had done of the girls – the one she started on her first day in Brusuglio, and which she then finished upon Donna Clara’s insistence.

  ‘You have style and personality, Miss Bianca. But be careful not to lose yourself in fashion.’

  Bianca actually wishes she could spend some of her money on clothes, but she is set on increasing her savings, which are growing ever so slowly, month after month. Soon she comes to the realization, though, that it is one thing to be in the country, where her somewhat outdated but nonetheless refined outfits give a decent impression, and another to be in the city where ladies are elegant and proud. We are avant-garde. We might look to Paris, but Paris looks to us, too, their clothes seem to say.