Bitter Greens (22 page)

Zusto da Grittoni, meanwhile, went through the door into my bedroom. I saw his embroidered shoe pass by inches from my face. I lay still, the endless
creak, creak, creak, creak, creak
of the bed torturing my ears.

Zusto came back. ‘She’s not there. Where is she?’

My mother did not answer. Her breath came in short gasps. The man was grunting like an animal.

‘WHERE IS SHE?’

‘Gone,’ my mother said faintly.

That was the last word I heard her say for a very long time.

All night, men came and went in my mother’s bedroom.

I could see nothing of them but their feet. Some wore shoes of soft leather, red or forest-green or brown with large buckles. Some wore soldier’s boots. One wore a priest’s long black cassock. Many were barefoot, the skin filthy, the toenails discoloured.

My mother whimpered and sobbed, but it was the constant
creak, creak, creak
of the bed that most disturbed me. I could do nothing but squeeze my eyes shut and jam my hands over my ears.

Slowly, the darkness ebbed away and grey light began to creep into my mother’s bedroom. The parade of feet finally stopped. Zusto da Grittoni, who had watched all night, sitting in the armchair where my mother and I had sat together so many times, got up and came to the bed. I heard him spit on her.

‘That, you filthy unfaithful whore, was what we call the royal thirty-nine. I hope you enjoyed yourself. If anyone asks you, tell them this is what happens to those who betray the Grittoni family. And tell that sweet little daughter of yours that she is more than welcome to seek my protection, as long as she better understands her duty to me. Now get out.’

Rage gave me the strength to get her away.

Unsurprisingly, she could hardly walk. I half-carried her from that foul house and found us a dark alley in which to hide. She clutched a lock of golden-red hair in one hand. It had been tied at one end with a bloodstained rag of pale pink fabric. I tried to take it from her, but she would not let go. It was my father’s hair, I understood that. If only my father had not come back. Indeed, he was a dark walker, the bringer of pain and misfortune.

When dusk fell, I led my mother – halting step by halting step – away from the sound of church bells, deeper and deeper into the alleyways that criss-crossed San Polo. I cannot tell you how I felt. I was cold and numb. My legs were weak, and shivers racked me. All this time, my mother did not speak a word. She clung tight to the hacked-off lock of hair. Her eyes were pale green pebbles in her white bruised face.

We came to a bridge where bare-breasted women hung over the ramparts, hollering down at the gondolas floating serenely along the murky canal below. To one side was a patched and narrow house with a pomegranate tree in a pot by its open front door. A haggard old whore sat in the doorway, cutting a pomegranate open with a knife. It was crowded with seeds glowing like tiny rubies. Without thinking, I pressed both hands together and begged. She looked us over – our fine clothes, my mother’s bruised face, her torn bodice
and stained skirts – and offered me half of the fruit. I scooped the seeds out with my fingers and thrust them into my mouth. They were delicious.

‘Need somewhere to stay?’ the whore asked.

I nodded.

‘Got any money?’

I rummaged in my mother’s bag. It was full of beauty  products – a vial of belladonna drops, a tub of white lead powder, a jar of vermilion to redden her lips. I found a pearl necklace, all tangled up with her brush, and showed it to the old whore. She reached out greedily for it, but I held it out of her reach.

‘How long can we stay?’

‘Saucy little
bimba
, aren’t you? You can stay a month, but not a second longer.’

I nodded. I had been afraid she would grab the pearls and tell us only a night.

‘And I’ll need water, lots of hot water.’ I wanted to sit in a hot bath forever. I wanted to scrub myself till my skin bled.

‘Anything else,
contessa
?’

‘A room with a lock and key.’

Her eyes flickered back to my mother, staring away into nothing. ‘Very well. Come with me.’ Getting to her feet, the whore drew her shawl to cover her heavy bare breasts.

We climbed a narrow staircase three floors up to a tiny hot room under the roof. The straw mattress was crawling with bed lice, the floor was filthy and the chamber pot crusted with ordure, but at least we could lock ourselves away in there. And there was an escape route out the window and across the rooftops.

First, I washed my mother as best I could. She cringed away from me, trying to hide her body with her hands. ‘It’s all right,’ I crooned. ‘We’re safe now. Let’s just get you clean and then you can rest.’

I washed out the chamber pot, swept the floor and threw the mattress out the window. I scrubbed and rubbed and dusted and scoured, as if I could so easily wash away the images of the previous night. When all was clean, I folded my mother’s velvet cloak and laid it on the floorboards, so she could lie
down. I bought us some food and fed it to my mother as if she was a child. She lay on her cloak, her legs curled into her chest. When it grew too dark to clean any more, I tried to cuddle up to her. She jerked herself away. So I lay alone on the hard floorboards and tried not to weep. Eventually, I slept.

The next day, I went out. I told myself I needed to find food, but the truth is I could not bear to stay in that room. First, I took a turquoise brooch to the Jews and exchanged it for a small bag of coins, which I hid in my bodice. Then, I went to market, bargaining with shopkeepers for their leftovers and off-cuts. My coins dwindled alarmingly fast. On my way back to the house with the pomegranate tree, I stole an orange off a table. My heart banged hard against the bones of my chest. It felt good. I felt alive. I stole a shawl off a washing line and a cushion off a chair, and ran all the way home, my lungs compressed with terror and triumph.

My mother lay motionless, her knees to her chin. She did not respond to my chatter, just turned her face away. Looking out the window at the jumble of roofs, I sat on my new cushion, the shawl about my shoulders, and ate my orange slowly, licking the juice from my fingers. Then I went out again.

My days fell into a pattern. I would roam the alleyways, stealing whatever I could, regardless of whether I needed it or not. I wanted to keep my thoughts focused firmly forward. But, every day, something – the creak of an old gate, a smell oozing from a doorway, a flash of something white in the corner of my eye – would stab me like a stiletto through the heart. Then I would scrub our room again, smashing fleas with the back of my scrubbing brush, or I’d beat the rug with a broom out the window till the people below shouted and shook their fists at me.

I don’t think my mother ever managed to forget, not even for a moment. She lay on her bed, clutching the lock of red-gold hair to her heart, her eyes wide open and staring at nothing. I tried to coax her to get up, to come and sit in the window and look down at the busy life of the street below, but she always shook her head. I could not coax her to eat much, so she got thinner and paler. She did not even have the energy or the will to weep, though she spoke a few words. ‘Thank you’ or ‘I’m sorry’. Once, she called me
tesorina
. I began to feel a little less afraid.

Summer came. It was so hot in our tiny room that I scarcely slept. Perspiration trickled down my back and prickled my groin and my armpits. Every time I glanced at my mother, she was awake, staring at the wall, her knees tucked up under her chin. ‘Go back to sleep,’ I’d say. ‘Everything’s all right.’ She’d nod and shut her eyes. It seemed as if I was the mother, and she my little
bambina
.

Sores developed at the corner of her mouth. She felt them with her tongue and turned a piteous face towards me. ‘I’ve the pox,’ she said.

I tried to comfort her, but she lifted her skirt and tried to see the red inflamed lips of her vagina. Sores clustered all around it. She felt them with her fingers. ‘I wish I was dead,’ she whispered. She lay down on her makeshift bed, weeping hopelessly, the lock of my father’s hair pressed against her cheek.

I went downstairs and stood for a while in the doorway, leaning my head against the doorframe. It was a hot golden evening and the streets were full of people seeking some movement of air. I looked not at their faces, laughing, glistening with sweat, nor at their swinging skirts or striding legs, bright in multicoloured hose; I looked at their feet. Feet in soft shoes, in boots, in
chopines
. Bare feet, filthy and black. I felt my rage boiling inside me.

Our landlady came down the hall and stood near me. ‘Hot,’ she said, waving her hand about her red-painted mouth. She looked at me out of the corner of one black-kohled eye. ‘Your month is almost up. Got any more pearls in that bag of yours?’

‘No. But don’t worry, I’ll pay you for the room.’

‘How old are you, little
bimba
?’

I crossed my arms. ‘Old enough.’

‘Old enough for a gentleman friend? I know someone who’d like a pretty little thing like you.’

‘If you bring a man anywhere near me, I’ll slice off his cock and then I’ll shove it up your arse.’ I showed her the poniard I had stolen and now carried in my bodice.

She drew back a wary step, then laughed. ‘What if I bring more than one?’

‘Then I’ll kill you.’

She must have realised I meant it, for she called me a little cow, drew her shawl about her raddled bosom and went away down the hall.

I went out into the streets that night, stealing anything that took my fancy, yelling insults up at the whores, dodging the deluge of piss from upturned chamber pots, making rude gestures at anyone who I thought looked at me sideways, throwing stones at cats, kicking over baskets of fruit, anything to make me feel alive and powerful. Though I scored plenty of insults and rude gestures in return, no one chased me or hurt me. I would like to think it was because I radiated waves of red-hot rage, but, truthfully, I think I still looked like a skinny little girl, even though inside I felt I was as world-weary as our landlady.

I came home only when doors began to shut up for the night and the alleys were shrouded in darkness. I carried my poniard in my hand, not at all sure that the old whore, our landlady, wouldn’t have men lying in wait for me. All was quiet, though, and I slipped up the stairs to the room I shared with my mother, feeling guilty now for having left her so long.

The first thing I noticed was the smell of vomit.

‘Mama?’ I peered into the darkness. There was no answer. ‘Mama?’ I scrabbled to strike a spark with my flint and stone. My hands were shaking with a sudden intense anxiety. A spark lit and died, but in its brief flare I saw my mother lying sprawled on the cushions, her eyes staring at me. My heart beat a staccato. I struck again and again, till I managed to light a taper. I lit a candle and turned slowly to look at her.

She was dead. Her mouth hung open, a streak of dried vomit on her chin. Her eyes bulged horribly. My father’s lock of hair lay across one limp palm. The vial of belladonna eye-drops lay fallen from the other. Belladonna was poisonous, I knew. My mother had always warned me not to drink it.

I stood stock still, staring at her. Her eyes seemed to accuse me. Slowly, not taking my eyes off her, I backed across the room and fumbled behind the stove, looking for the drawstring bag full of jewellery I had hidden there. I tied it about my waist, backed out of the room and shut the door. I slid down to the ground, bowed my head into my arms and sat, unable to think or feel, wanting only to disappear into darkness.

I sat there all night. Only the stealthy advance of light into the stairwell roused me from my stupor. I rose stiffly, went downstairs and banged on our landlady’s door until she got up and opened the door a crack.

‘What do you want?’ she croaked.

‘I need a witch.’

Curiosity sparked in her dull brown eyes. She tilted her matted head. ‘It’ll cost you.’

I dug in my pocket for the few
scudi
I carried on me. She examined them carefully, rubbing her thumb over the edges to make sure they had not been clipped, then told me, ‘Best witch I know is Wise Sibillia. They say she’s a thousand years old and once led a coven of witches in the Appenines, before the Inquisition drove her away. You’d best be careful – if you betray her, she’ll tear out your heart and eat it.’

Wise Sibillia sounded perfect.

The witch’s eyes were black and inscrutable. Her long flowing hair was as white as an old woman’s, though her figure was straight and strong, and her dark olive skin smooth and unlined, except for one deep crease between her brows, angling down from the left. It was her mouth that betrayed her. The lips were sunken and puckered, and, when she opened them to speak, she revealed only a few broken stumps of teeth.

‘So, child, what can I do for you?’ the witch said.

‘I want revenge on someone,’ I answered.

‘Are you sure you want to dabble in such dark matters? Can you not spit in his soup or put a thistle in his shoe?’

I looked at her scornfully. ‘I want him to suffer forever.’

Her lip curled in amusement. ‘Powerful black magic, then. You will need to hate him with great intensity.’

‘I do.’

‘Do you have money?’

I did not trouble with the few battered
scudis
I carried in my pocket. I lifted my skirt and unknotted a ruby ring I had tied in the hem of my petticoat. It was the most valuable piece of jewellery my mother had owned. I lifted it
against the light to show Sibillia. She raised her left eyebrow, deepening the line at its corner so I knew how it had been carved into her flesh.

‘You must hate him very much.’

‘I do,’ I repeated.

‘What is your name, child?’ Sibillia asked.

I bit my lip and looked away. We were sitting in her garden at dusk. The air was heavy with perfume from a white hanging flower like an angel’s trumpet. Giant moths beat against the lanterns strung along the archways of her patio. A thin crescent moon was pinned to the sky above the crooked tilted roofs of San Polo.

I remembered an old story my nursemaid had once told me about the moon and witches. ‘Selena,’ I answered.

‘A most intriguing name. Much more interesting than Maria.’

I tried hard not to react. How had she known my name was Maria?
Most girls in Venice were called that
, I told myself, and raised my chin.

‘Do you have a last name, Selena?’ the witch asked.

The whore’s brat. The bastard. And now a new one: the orphan
. I shook my head.

‘So when is your birthday?’

I told her, and she said, ‘Born under the sign of the lion – most suitable, given your hair and eyes. You should call yourself Selena Leonelli. That’s a name with power.’