Bitter Greens (8 page)

Rich customers would sit here in the
portego
and drink wine while Alessandro showed them fabric and feathers and jewels, and a display of masks he had made. As his customers described the mask of their dreams, Alessandro would sketch it in charcoal, the mask bursting into life on the parchment, sometimes beautiful, sometimes grotesque.

Margherita’s father always said a person only truly revealed themselves when in disguise.

Margherita was not allowed to play in the
portego
, for one never knew when a customer would come, and the room must always be clean and tidy and respectable. It was only ever used by the family on special occasions, and so Margherita’s eyes widened when she saw that her mother had spread the table with a spotless white cloth and the best pewter bowls and mugs. A small bunch of
margherita
daisies was in a fat blue jug, and three sweet oranges sat in an earthenware bowl. Coarse brown bread stood ready on a wooden board, next to a bowl of soft white cheese floating in golden oil and thyme sprigs. Soup made with fish and clams and fennel and scattered with sprigs of fresh parsley steamed in a big clay pot.

‘Come and eat,
topolina
.’ Alessandro lifted Margherita up to sit in the only chair, a heavy throne made of dark carved wood with a back and armrests, and softened with cushions. If this had happened three hours ago, Margherita would have been thrilled. She always thought the chair belonged to a princess in a story, and loved the way it had claws for feet and griffin faces on the armrests. Now, though, she felt only miserable and uneasy. She did not understand why her parents were so upset.

As her parents began to serve the food, Margherita picked up the golden pendant in her hand and examined it for the first time. It was a delicate golden sprig of parsley, hanging on a fine gold chain. It was so realistic, it looked as if someone had plucked a parsley leaf from the garden and dipped it in gold. Margherita thought the pendant one of the prettiest things she had ever seen.

Her mother looked up and saw what Margherita was doing. ‘Take it off.’ She dropped the soup ladle with a clatter, spraying brown droplets all over the white tablecloth. She dragged the necklace over Margherita’s head and hurled it out the open window. A few seconds later, Margherita heard the faint sound of a splash as it fell into the canal below.

‘My necklace!’

‘Pascalina, that was stupid. What if she asks us for her gift back?’

‘I won’t have my Margherita wearing anything from that woman.’

‘Pascalina, it looked expensive …’

‘I don’t care.’

‘My necklace! You threw it out the window.’

‘I’m sorry,
mia cara
. I’ll get you another necklace, a much prettier one, I promise. You didn’t want that awful thing, did you?’

‘It wasn’t awful. I liked it. I want my necklace back.’ Margherita began to cry and pushed her mother away when she dropped on her knees beside her. Pascalina began to cry too, gasping sobs that frightened Margherita and silenced her. She put out a tentative hand and stroked her mother’s face, and Pascalina flung her arms about her and cried into her hair. For a moment, mother and daughter clung together, then Pascalina wiped her face with the corner of her apron and stood up. ‘I’m sorry, my daisy, but
you don’t want anything that woman gave you. It’s true what your father says. She’s a sorceress. Her gifts always have strings attached. Your father and I will buy you something pretty next time we go to the market. Come, eat up your soup, it’ll be getting cold.’

Trying to smile, Pascalina served the soup, and Alessandro cut the bread and passed it around, giving Margherita a large dollop of soft cheese and olive oil. She could not eat, laying down her spoon and putting her left thumb in her mouth.

‘And look, we have oranges for you. We know you love them. And I’ve made you a new dress.’ Pascalina unfolded a simply made frock of dark green wool, with a sash of copper-coloured ribbon, exactly the shade of Margherita’s hair. It would have been cut down from a gown bought at the second-hand dealer’s stall in the market and carefully sewn together to hide any stains or darns, but Pascalina must have been working on it for weeks in secret. ‘And Papa has made you a mask of your own. Look, it’s just like a daisy’s face.’

Margherita stared at the mask. It was painted bright yellow and marked with little copper-coloured circles to suggest florets. White petals streaked with gold radiated out in all directions. Long golden eyelashes fringed the eye slits, and the mouth was painted as a big happy smile. ‘
La sua bella
,’ she whispered, her lisp more pronounced than ever.

‘You’ll be able to wear it to the Festival of Ascension in a few weeks’ time,
topolina
,’ Alessandro said.

Once, Margherita would have danced about in joy, wearing the new dress and the mask, singing jubilantly. Now, she said, ‘Thank you,’ in a subdued voice.

‘Don’t you like them?’ her mother asked anxiously.

Margherita nodded and conjured a smile, as much a mask as the constructions of papier mâché down in her father’s studio.

The next day, Margherita saw the sorceress again.

The woman with the eyes like a lion’s looked in through the shutters of the shop and spoke to Margherita as she sat sorting beads and feathers at her father’s bench.

‘Good morning, Margherita.’

Margherita did not answer, though her hand jerked and silver beads spilt across the wooden benchtop.

‘You must be ready to come to me.’

Margherita shook her head.

The sorceress frowned. ‘What do you mean? Has your mother forgotten her promise?’

‘I … I didn’t tell her,’ Margherita lied instinctively, her face growing hot.

‘Well, tell your mother I’ve not forgotten her promise and neither can she. I expect her to honour it.’

Putting her thumb in her mouth, Margherita nodded. As soon as the sorceress had walked away, she ran to find her parents. She heard the angry sound of their voices as she hurried up the stairs.

‘She’ll never agree.’ Pascalina was crying.

‘I have to try. Surely she cannot have a heart of stone?’

‘A heart of ice!’

‘It’s worth a try. What can she want with a little girl? In seven years,
chiacchere
will be practically a woman grown. I’ll go and find a letter-writer in the market. He’ll know all the best phrases …’

‘A letter? Madonna have mercy, as if a letter would sway that cold heart. Alessandro, I beg you! We must get away from here.’

‘She will find us wherever we go.’ Alessandro’s voice was sharp and angry. ‘She’s a witch, remember. We cannot hide from her eyes.’

‘But we cannot give her our
piccolina
.’

‘Mama, what do you mean?’ Margherita ran into the kitchen and to her mother’s side, throwing her arms about her legs.

For a moment, a strained silence. Then Pascalina bent and embraced her. ‘Do not fear, my darling, my daisy. Papa will make everything all right, won’t you? Alessandro?’

Margherita’s father looked at her with eyes filled with grief and something else. To her dismay, she saw it was fear. She did not tell her parents that she had seen the sorceress again, but put her thumb in her mouth and leant against her mother, her hand gripping a twist of Pascalina’s skirt.

Alessandro squared his shoulders and stood up. ‘I’ll go now.’ He took off his leather jerkin and shrugged on his embroidered doublet, hanging behind the door. For a moment, he stopped, his hand on Margherita’s copper-coloured head. ‘Don’t worry,
topolina
, all will be well.’ Then he was gone.

After dinner, Pascalina took Margherita and tucked her up in her bed, a small ragged piece of pale-green material in her hand, the only surviving remnant of Margherita’s baby blanket. Pascalina had sewn the sage-green wool with white satin stars before Margherita was born, but only one star was left, framed by a halo of ragged fabric. Margherita called it Bella-Stella and had only recently been persuaded not to carry it with her everywhere in case it was lost.

With her thumb in her mouth, Margherita lay curled like a baby dormouse, while her mother sang her lullabies until Margherita’s tight grip on her mother’s hand relaxed, and she let herself slip towards sleep.

The next day passed slowly. Her father paced the floor, unable to work, his face haggard. Her mother sat with her sewing on her lap, her hands clenched, crushing the fine linen. No one spoke very much.

As the afternoon lengthened, Alessandro got to his feet. ‘She’s had plenty of time to read the letter. I’ll go and speak to her.’

‘Oh, my darling, be careful,’ Pascalina said. ‘Don’t lose your temper, don’t enrage her. Beg her … beg her to be merciful.’

Alessandro put on his best doublet and went out. Pascalina sat as if in a trance, till Margherita came and climbed into her lap, twining her arms about her neck. ‘Mama, why …’

Her mother stirred and stood up, putting Margherita down. ‘How about we bake a special pie for your father, just you and I? He’ll … he’ll be back soon. We’ll make him something delicious for when he gets home.’

Yet, when they went down to the cellar, it was to find that rats had been at the flour. Pascalina sat on the bottom step and drew Margherita onto her lap. Together, they stared at the spoilt sack. ‘Today of all days,’ Pascalina murmured. ‘Oh well, we’ll need to go to the market after all …’

‘No, please. Let’s not go.’

Pascalina chewed her lip. Her freckled face looked pale and weary. ‘I need to go. I cannot make bread, or a pie, or even soup without flour.’ She stood up.

‘I don’t want to go.’ Margherita clung to her mother’s leg, tears welling up in her eyes. Pascalina was silent for a moment, as if contemplating trying to go to market with a weeping girl clinging to her leg every step of the way, then said with a sigh, ‘Very well, you stay here, my daisy. I’ll go to the market by myself. I won’t be long. Don’t open the door to anyone.’

Margherita went up to her room, to play with her doll. Her room was small, with a low slanted roof. It had a little window, with a lovely view across the narrow alleyway into the garden on the far side of the wall. The garden was the most beautiful place Margherita had ever seen. In spring, it was a sea of delicate blossom. In summer, it was green and fruitful. In autumn, the trees blazed gold and red and orange, as vivid as Margherita’s hair. Even in winter, it was beautiful, with bare branches against the old
stone walls and green hedges in curves and curlicues about beds of winter-flowering herbs and flowers.

Margherita’s mother never liked to look down into the garden. She always kept the shutters closed, so Margherita’s room was dim all day long. Margherita needed more light to see her doll, though, so she opened her shutters and looked down into the garden.

The sorceress was sitting under a blossom tree, drinking from a jewelled goblet, her skirts spread out like the petals of a blue flower, her torrents of golden-red hair shining in the sunshine. She looked up and smiled at Margherita and beckoned. Margherita slammed her shutter closed and jumped into bed. Her heart was pounding against her ribs.

A little while later, someone banged on the door. The visitor banged and banged, and kept on banging. Margherita tried to ignore it, but it was too loud. She imagined the neighbours hearing it and wondering what was wrong. She imagined an accident to her father, some catastrophe in the marketplace that had injured her mother. She could not bear the suspense. She got up and crept down the stairs to the shop, the masks grinning and winking at her in the gloom, and opened the door, just a crack.

A huge man stood there, dressed all in black, his face as round as the moon.

‘What is it? What’s wrong?’

‘La Strega Bella wants you.’ The man shoved the door open, even though Margherita was pressing all her weight against it.

The sorceress stepped into the doorway. ‘Margherita. I’m disappointed in you.’

Margherita was too afraid to speak, her legs feeling weak beneath her.

‘Did you tell your mother what I said?’

Margherita shook her head.

‘But why? Are you afraid? You shouldn’t be afraid of me. I’ve been waiting for you a long time.’

Margherita frowned. She felt she had been rude but did not want to apologise.

‘Hold out your hand,’ the sorceress said.

Obediently, Margherita held out her hand. For a moment, she wondered if the sorceress meant to give her another necklace, and her heart lifted in anticipation. Then she thought perhaps the sorceress would whip her across the hand with a willow switch, like the priest whipped the boys at school, and she began to take her hand away.

But the sorceress had smiled and bent down, taking Margherita’s hand in both of her own, soft, white and perfumed. She lifted Margherita’s hand to her mouth and bit off the tip of her left ring finger. Margherita screamed.

The sorceress spat out the ragged little piece of flesh. Blood stained her mouth. She dabbed it with a handkerchief, which she pulled from her sleeve. ‘Tell your mother to remember her promise or I will eat you all up,’ the sorceress said sweetly and stepped out of the doorway.

Margherita kicked the door shut and flung herself against it. Blood was running down her left hand. She wound it in her apron. In moments, the linen was stained red. Margherita sobbed out loud. She slid down the door and sat with her knees pressed against her chest, her hand throbbing with pain.

She did not know what to do.

Soon, she heard a key in the lock. She crawled away as the door opened. Her mother came in, carrying a basket of food. Margherita lifted her tear-swollen eyes to her mother’s face and held up her injured hand, still wrapped in the bloodstained apron. Pascalina dropped the basket. ‘Oh sweet mother of Jesus. What happened?’

‘She … she came … she bit off my finger … she said … she said she’d eat me all up … if you forget your promise.’

With a hoarse cry, her mother was on her knees beside Margherita. She opened the bloody apron, to see the ragged wound at the tip of her daughter’s left ring finger. ‘It’s not so bad. It’s not the whole finger. It’s not even the whole tip. It’ll heal. It’ll heal, my darling. Don’t cry. Here, let me bandage you up. Oh, my poor darling. Didn’t I say don’t open the door?’

‘She said she would eat me all up.’ Margherita felt as if she was two people. One was crying and shaking, holding out a hand that ran with crimson streaks. The other stood outside the first, cold and stiff.

Pascalina carefully bound up Margherita’s finger and warmed up some soup for her. She spooned it into her mouth as if Margherita was a baby again, and Margherita swallowed obediently. Then Pascalina sat, rocking her daughter on her lap, singing her a lullaby. ‘
Farfallina, bella e bianca, vola vola, mai si stanca, gira qua, e gira la – poi si resta sopra un fiore, e poi si resta sopra un fiore
… Butterfly, beautiful and white, fly and fly, never get tired, turn here and turn there – she rests upon a flower … and she rests upon a flower.’

Alessandro came home long after dusk. ‘I’m sorry. She kept me waiting a long time,’ he explained wearily. ‘Is
chiacchere
asleep?’

Margherita kept her eyes closed, her face pressed against her mother’s breast.

‘While you were kicking your heels at her palace, La Strega Bella came here and bit off the top of Margherita’s finger.’

‘What!’ Alessandro bent and picked up Margherita’s hand, examining the bandaged finger. ‘Is she mad?’

‘It’s a warning.’

‘My hands.’ Alessandro sat down heavily. ‘If we don’t give her Margherita, she’ll have me charged with theft, and both my hands will be cut off. How will we survive then?’

‘Did you see her?’ Pascalina said after a while.

Alessandro shook his head. ‘She would not see me. That castrato servant of hers came, after a long while. It was strange to hear such a high squeaky voice coming from such a giant of a man. He said …’

‘She’ll have no mercy.’ Pascalina spoke in the same flat dreary voice, after Alessandro was unable to go on.

‘No. She won’t relent. She says I stole from her, and I must pay the penalty. God knows, it was only a handful of leaves, not worth much at all, but she could say anything and the judges will believe her. She sleeps with most of them.’

Margherita could feel her mother’s chest heaving under her head. ‘My little girl.’

‘She’s seven now.’ Alessandro’s voice cracked. ‘Old enough to go to the
convent, or into service. If we had a litter of little ones, we’d be happy to see her well settled.’

‘But she’s our only one, she’s our precious little girl. We can’t give her into the hands of that woman. Imagine what she would do to her.’

‘The castrato said Signorina Leonelli will treat Margherita like her own daughter. She’ll go to school and have everything she needs.’

‘But what does she want with her? Does she intend …’ Pascalina’s voice broke.

‘He swore to me that Signora Leonelli would not … train our girl up in her own profession. He says she promises to keep her safe.’

‘Will I … will I be allowed to see her?’

Silence.

‘I don’t think so,’ Alessandro said finally.

Pascalina was crying, clutching Margherita so close to her that she could scarcely breathe. She struggled to sit up. ‘Mama?’

Pascalina hugged her close again. ‘Oh, my little darling, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry.’

Margherita could not speak. She felt a lurch in her stomach, as if walking downstairs in the dark and suddenly finding no step beneath her foot.

‘Come on up to bed, my darling. Come, let’s get you all tucked up. It’s all right, all will be well, all will be well.’ Pascalina tucked Margherita into her bed, her bandaged hand carefully laid on the bedclothes. She sat beside Margherita, smoothing back her hair from her brow, curling a ringlet around and around her finger.

Grasping her tattered blanket against her chest, Margherita looked up at her mother’s face, white and tense in the candlelight. ‘Mama, why?’ she whispered. ‘Why does that woman want me? Why did she bite off the top of my finger? What does she mean when she says you promised to give me to her?’