Sleeping Embers of an Ordinary Mind (9 page)

Toni awakens in the back of Mr. Lu’s car when they arrive back in downtown Suzhou from their visit to Tiger Hill. She hears Mr. Lu talking about the battle painting, and he’s saying he’d like something in the picture, actually
added
to the picture, to remind him of China. She knows her dad will hate the idea, totally hate it. Mr. Lu turns around and says to Toni, “Did you hear that? Your father is making a change to the painting to amuse me. What do you think he should include?”

“Er . . . how about the boulder at Tiger Hill?” She’s sitting up straight, alert. “The one sliced clean in half by the famous swordsman.” When she stood in front of the boulder, she had the uncanny feeling of history being mirrored on opposite sides of the world; the legend of the split boulder was so similar to the legend of the sword in the stone. Even if the legends weren’t
exactly
historical fact, the story of the split boulder was way cool—an ancient sword, still buried, left undisturbed at Tiger Hill, and the mystery of how such a perfect sword was made so many centuries ago.

“I was thinking your father could change the fields in the background to paddy fields, rising up in terraces.” Her dad’s head is sinking into his shoulders, and Toni wants to burst out laughing. “But yours is a much better idea. Don’t you think, Dominic? A boulder sliced in half would sit naturally in the foreground. Much more subtle.”

Her dad twists around and winks at her. “Yes, as you say, it’s subtle.”

They turn into the Garden Hotel, and Mr. Lu starts talking about deadlines and payments. She thinks it’s mad they’ve left the real business chat to the end of the afternoon when they’re about to leave.

As she climbs down from the rear seat at the hotel entrance, she knows this is her last chance to ask her own burning question, and she knows, for sure, a real journalist would blurt it out. So she says to Mr. Lu, “I read something in my guidebook, and I’ve been thinking about it . . . All those Chinese people who died of famine when Mao ruled China . . . Does your family remember those times?”

She can tell that her dad is embarrassed. He’s rubbing his face with his hand. But Mr. Lu doesn’t seem to care. “Oh! Well, I have to say that my own grandparents were fortunate. They had good jobs, but everyone was affected to some extent. My father remembers, as a child, being very hungry.”

Toni wonders if he’s playing it down.

Her dad pushes open the hotel room door. “I’m amazed Mr. Lu gave up his whole day to show us around,” he says.

“He had an ulterior motive, didn’t he?”

“That’s far too cynical for a thirteen-year-old.”

“But it’s true. He definitely wanted a bit of Suzhou in the painting.”

“I don’t mind. It’s refreshingly disruptive.”

And that’s her dad putting a positive spin on things, she says to herself. He should be a politician. She drops onto the bed as he sits down at the lacquered desk. Toni knows that as soon as he opens his laptop, he’ll check his mail. So, when he opens the lid, she watches his eyes. He looks at the top menu bar and clicks the Wi-Fi icon, and when a few moments later he glances down, she knows he’s looking at the bottom toolbar to click the mail icon. She’s tired, but she pushes herself off the bed and walks behind him. She looks over his shoulder. There it is, the same mail window; the new messages haven’t downloaded yet.

“What’s Anna Robecchi emailing about?”

Her dad doesn’t answer straightaway. “What’s that?”

“Anna Robecchi . . . what’s she emailing about?”

“She’s watching the house while we’re away. Watering the plants and getting the mail from the letterbox.”

“So why does she need to send a message?”

“Toni—”

“I mean, she can do those jobs without emailing you. Or has she done something stupid?”

“Toni, stop it. She’s—”

“Dad, I’m sick of her checking on us. We don’t need her help any more.”

“Well,
you
might not, but I’m grateful to Anna. Especially when she brings one of her fruit crumbles. She knows I don’t have time for baking.”

“I don’t like her crumbles.”

“Yes, you do.”

He turns in his chair and pulls her onto his knee. “Stop it, Toni. We’re both tired out. Let’s talk about it when we’ve had a rest. Come on! We’ve had a great day.”

“She’s always at our house acting like she’s my—”

“Well, she’s not your . . . Look, I can tell her I’m starting to make puddings . . . as a hobby. Or something.” He tries to laugh. “I’ll buy myself a baker’s apron.” But Toni won’t smile. She understands it now—Anna Robecchi is a new blank page for her dad. It’s all right for him. She rests her chin on his shoulder. Her tears fall inside his collar.

CHAPTER NINE

Florence, 1469

Antonia stands outside her mother’s bedchamber and recalls a time when the door was always open. That is, unless her mother had visitors who had business to discuss or gossip to share—in which case Antonia would be shooed out and the door would be closed behind her. Outside of such occasions, Antonia could wander in and out of her mother’s bedchamber at will. These days, however, she feels she needs a specific reason to enter, as though the effort required to push the door open has to be weighed against the triviality of her errand. Because why would she open the door just to look in, to see her mother, to wave—and wait to hear her say, “Hello, sweet one”—and then dip out of the room? The open door kept the insensibility of her childhood in play.

The door is now closed as a matter of habit so that her mother might catnap without being woken prematurely by noises from the kitchen. When her mother’s enclosure became the norm, Antonia found herself in a limbo, having no careless contact with either of her parents. Her father worked at his workshop until late, and in any case, he worked away from home for months on end. But since her father’s retirement last year, she hangs around outside his study. The door is usually open, and she often wonders if the house is too quiet for him after the noise and clatter of his workshop. He knows she’s loitering, she’s sure of it, because when she peeks around the door, he speaks to her as though he’s picking up a conversation in progress. He’ll say, “So, come here and look at this.” Or, “There’s something else I want to tell you.”

Antonia can hear her mother and Clara talking on the other side of the door, and she wishes she could slip into the room unnoticed. She needs to consider where her mother should sit for her portrait, consider the light in the bedchamber, consider the backdrop. There’s so much to think about before she can make a single mark. Her father’s instructions make perfect sense when he’s explaining them face to face, but as soon as she leaves his study, she feels adrift.

Forget the subject.
That’s easy to say. How can she possibly forget her mother? She sighs. Her hand is pressed flat against the door, and she steels herself to make her entrance. Instead of pushing, she leans forward and taps the door silently with her forehead.

At least she has grasped one important point from her father’s lessons: making a drawing and making a painting are two separate endeavours. A drawing is merely a beginning. A drawing captures the detailed observations; it establishes the pose, the composition. Antonia hopes her father will not be angry with her, for she plans to steal one of his ideas. The portrait will show her mother looking into the distance, beyond the picture’s edge, like Father’s Noah. Noah worried about the future, just like her mother.

She enters the bedchamber. Her mother briefly glances over, but she doesn’t falter in her conversation. She’s reclining atop the bedcover, propped on cushions, while her maid and Clara sit on the bench alongside the bed. The maid is mending a shirt—no doubt one of Donato’s, since her mother wants all his second-best shirts repaired and their cuffs embroidered before he returns from Urbino.

“How many sweetmeats should I make, mistress? One for each sister?” says Clara.

“More than that. The convent may have extra visitors for the Feast of Saint Martha, and on
her
feast day of all days, we should double our efforts. Make another pot of almond paste for some extra canisiones. And my aunt loves custard torta, so let’s take twenty small ones—don’t stint on the cinnamon. And two batches of rice fricatellae. But cut them into smaller pieces than you serve here. We don’t want to be accused of culinary excess.”

Clara laughs at her mistress’s remark, for only a month ago, one of the city’s wealthiest merchants, a patron of Paolo’s, had received a visit from the sumptuary officer. Every citizen in Florence knows that this merchant has saved dozens of girls from destitution, paying their spiritual dowries so they could enter cloisters. Nevertheless, he was denounced over a banquet considered too lavish—denounced either by a guest or, more likely, by someone infuriated at not being invited.

“I’ve never known
any
of the sisters to refuse a fricatella, whatever the size,” says Clara. She leaves the bedchamber with a long list of instructions committed to memory, and Tomasa dismisses the maid.

“Are you well enough, Mother, for this?” Please don’t tire too soon, Antonia says to herself.

“I’m feeling much stronger today. Anyway, it can’t be so hard, can it? Sitting and doing nothing.”

“I can’t believe you’ve never sat for Father.”

“It’s a measure of his success. Only a painter who’s short of work has time to paint family portraits. In any case, your father didn’t return home after a busy day at the workshop to start another painting.”

Antonia sets down her paper, board and chalks. “I’ve been thinking about your pose, and I’d like you to sit at your small table by the window. I’d like you to have your prayer book open.” She’s embarrassed, ordering her mother around, but the pose is now fixed in her mind.

And so, her mother swings her feet slowly off the bed. She stands and straightens her headdress.

“Please, sit here, holding your prayer book as though you’ve been reading.”

“I always kneel when I read my prayers.”

“I don’t want you to kneel, Mother. You’d tire too soon. Let’s imagine you’re studying rather than praying.”

“Maybe I should truly read to myself while you’re sketching; then I won’t be bored and fidgety.” She takes up her pose with seriousness writ across her face in frown lines and puckered mouth.

“I’m sorry. I don’t want to be difficult, Mother, but I want you to look towards the window.”

“How can I read if I’m looking out of the window?”

“Well, the story of the picture—”

“The story of the picture? What in heavens do you mean?”

“Father taught me . . . it’s complicated. You see, the way he explains . . . there’s the subject of the painting, which is you.” Antonia can feel herself blushing at her own directness. “Then there’s a story and . . . as well as the subject and the story, there’s the composition.”

“So what is the story for my portrait?”

“It’s simple. You’re studying your prayer book, and for a moment you look away, and you are lost in a private reflection. The painting will capture that moment. Anyone looking at the painting will wonder what you are thinking.”

Her mother blinks at her, and after a long pause, she says, “Your father has never talked about his work to
me
in those terms. What is he filling your head with, at your age?”

“But will you look towards the window? Please, Mother. Look as though you are dreaming. I don’t want you to frown.”

“I think I should study a psalm for a few minutes to give me something to think about.”

“You don’t need to do that,” says Antonia. She’s alarmed that her drawing session will be delayed. “Think about something easy. Think about . . . Saint Martha. You know, the story of Martha and Mary. Think about how Martha did all the housework when Jesus paid a visit.”

“‘Paid a visit’? I’m sure Jesus didn’t simply
drop by
.”

“You know what I mean. Please, think about something pleasant and look out of the window.”

“You’ll have to be more patient than this, Antonia, if you want to be a painter.” Her mother sits square to the table and holds the sides of the book with both hands.

“Place one hand flat on the prayer book as though you want to keep your place while you are contemplating your own thoughts.”

“Like this?”

“Good. Relax your shoulders and, without twisting around, glance towards—”

“The window. Yes, I
do
understand.”

“That’s perfect.”

Antonia steps forward to adjust her mother’s simple white headdress, which covers all her hair and hangs to her waist. She adjusts the folds so they fall symmetrically around her still-striking face. It’s so much easier to draw her mother than Clara, whose bone structure has long since disappeared beneath flushed and rounded contours. Antonia reminds herself that when she paints this portrait, she may choose any colour she likes for the headdress and the book’s leather binding. And she’ll add colour to her mother’s complexion.

She sits down with her board and paper, and she pens several small line drawings with her quill. She needs to understand her mother’s face—the length of her nose relative to her forehead, upper lip relative to chin, width of her mouth relative to the width of her head. Anyone who knows her mother will recognize even the slightest discrepancy. A portrait is far more difficult than any arrangement of bowls and pitchers. Who would ever know if a spout were too short?

But her headdress is too . . . boring—the folds are too symmetrical. So Antonia steps forward and adjusts the hang of the cloth and repeats the line drawings. It still doesn’t look right. Antonia moves her chair a few inches to the left. That seems better, but she wishes her father were stood by her side. He could help her draw the edge of the table and the edges of the book. How do these angles work? She can’t see it clearly.

Twenty minutes later, she pauses. “What are you thinking about, Mother? You’re starting to frown.”

“I’m not thinking about Martha and Mary. I’m wondering what your father thinks you’ll do with all this drawing and painting. Any husband will need the patience of a saint to entertain such a distraction. And there aren’t many patient men in the world.”

“I could paint instead of doing needlework.”

“That’s all very well, but you can’t expect a servant to do anything more than rough mending. A husband expects his wife to do the fine needlework, embroider the table linen and such.”

“I’ll have to find a husband who won’t notice the linen.”

“Antonia!”

“Sorry . . . Keep looking towards the window, Mother. I’m drawing your eyes now. Please keep your face calm.”

Two minutes later, barely moving her mouth, her mother says, “One day soon, your father will make a decision, and you should be—”

“Mother, I’m trying to draw your mouth.”

Her mother drops the pose. “Let’s continue later. This afternoon, shall we?”

“I need the morning light throwing strong shadows across your face. So we must do this tomorrow at the same time. And the day after, too.”

“If you insist, which
clearly
, you do.”

Antonia rushes to plump up the feather cushions on the bed. Her mother lies down, lets her head loll backwards and closes her eyes as she speaks. “As far as I can tell, your father has taken no serious initiative. He’s either embroiled with his perspective or teaching you his artist’s ways.”

“Is it so urgent?” Antonia sits cross-legged on the bed beside her mother.

“Haven’t you noticed? He’s getting tired more easily, and we need him to be fully involved in any discussions. We shouldn’t give this responsibility to your brother—which will happen, mark my words, if your father continues to procrastinate. As it stands, with your father’s reputation and his mother’s family name, we’re in a strong position to negotiate any proposal. Apart from anything else . . .” She sounds weary. “I’ll sleep better when I know everything is settled. We can’t have you unbetrothed for much longer. If you so much as smile at a boy in church, the gossip will ruin your reputation, and the family name. For Donato’s sake, we need you safely in another household or . . .”

“I know.”

“Has your father mentioned your dowry chest?”

“What? No. What dowry chest?”

“My mother would turn in her grave if she knew how my artist husband approaches wedding negotiations. He buys a fine chest and gets out his paintbrushes. He should be talking to all his artist friends, his merchant patrons; he should be mentioning that you have reached the age where a proposal would be welcome.”

“So Father
does
want me to marry?” Antonia kneels up on the bed and asks in earnest, “Did he tell you how many panels there are in the chest? Has he chosen the subjects to paint? I’d like—”

“Enough, Antonia! You’re as bad as he is.”

Paolo gathers Antonia’s studies for her mother’s portrait and spreads them out atop his battle sketches, still unsorted, on the table in his study.

“I have an old panel, already prepared with gesso. You can use it for your painting. So, let’s look at these drawings of yours before you start mixing and splashing around with my pigments.”

“I think I’ll need your help with—”

“No need to speak. The drawings will say it all.”

First he inspects the ink drawings, puts them aside. Then he holds up a larger drawing in red chalk that describes Tomasa without the use of line; it’s a tonal drawing that shows her face in high contrast.

“You sat your mother close to the window?”

“Yes. I—”

He holds up a finger. “Not yet . . . You didn’t
include
the window or any detail in the wall behind her?”

“No. Should I have done so?”

He doesn’t reply.

“Are you satisfied with this tonal drawing? Are you intending to paint from this?”