The Blind Contessa's New Machine (27 page)

“It’s not much of a letter,” Liza said, with a hint of derision.

Her knock had awoken Carolina only a few moments before. Carolina sat up in bed and pushed her hair away from her face. The room around her coalesced in her mind for a moment, flooded with morning light. Then it broke into pieces under an onslaught of memories: dark trees, black water, a frightened child. “Read it to me,” she said.

“
Forgive me,
” Liza read.

A moment passed. Carolina’s heart swelled with tears. She bit them back.

“That’s all?” she asked.

“There is a number,” Liza said. “Underneath the name.”

“What number?” Carolina said.

“One,” Liza answered.

This was a time to meet, at one that next morning. “Thank you,” Carolina said.

On the floor, Liza moved Carolina’s discarded dress with her foot or her hand. “This needs cleaning,” she said. “Shall I take it for you?”

“Please,” Carolina said.

Carolina didn’t choose to break the meeting with Turri. She simply knew, the same way she knew her own name or any other simple fact, that it was impossible to keep it. Some kind of veil had torn in her mind during the night, filling it with harsh light. In it, the lake became a searing flash. On its banks, Turri’s form flickered, weak and thin, like a flame teased by a draft.

She tried to lose the afternoon in dreams, but sleep hovered just out of reach, turned skittish by the waves of shame that swamped her heart and the fear that roosted in her chest. Memories that she’d treasured of Turri, small jokes, certain touches, no longer worked to comfort her. At the same time, she didn’t dare move. She had a sense that whatever had ripped the veil had also weakened her other defenses, and that now any slight motion might break open the locked rooms in her mind, releasing creatures she was still too frightened to name.

At ten that evening, sleep began to circle. To keep herself from drifting off before Turri arrived, Carolina set her anniversary clock to chime the quarter hours. The first time it did, Babolo was surprised. By eleven, he considered the clock an enemy. At midnight, exasperated by the clock’s lack of respect for his vigorous protests, he fell into a grumpy sleep, determined not to dignify the strange machine with further attention, although he couldn’t refrain from a few disgruntled notes each time it pealed.

Carolina lay on her bed as the hours fell away, her breathing shallow from the weight of fear on her rib cage. When one o’clock struck, her eyes were open, her hands flat on the velvet blanket. Over the hours, she had caught the sound of night birds taking refuge in the eaves, leaves shaking in the wind, the house creaking as the day’s heat left it for the sky. But now there was no disturbance, inside or out. Somewhere, Turri waited silently in the shadows. When she didn’t appear, he raised no alarm.

“Lavender,” Liza said. “With green lace.”

Carolina shook her head. It was an hour before Contessa Rossi’s party, and a week since Turri had left her at the lake. Every day since then he’d sent a new message: clumsily coded apologies, new times to meet. She hadn’t answered any of them. This wasn’t from new wisdom, or anger, or shame: her heart simply drew back from the thought of meeting him the way a hand recoils, unreasoning, from the heat of a flame. But as the days passed, the harsh light in her mind had dimmed. The familiar darkness rolled back in, carrying her dreams with it. She’d sunk into them gratefully, but with a lingering sense of dread that prevented her from flight or exploration. Her wishes had become simple. Often, she settled down wherever she found herself in a dream, to watch clouds slide over the face of the moon or water pass under a bridge, content to be any place that was not a nightmare or her waking life.

Turri didn’t appear in the dreams, but by day she had begun to miss him, not with the desire that had drawn her through the dark house in their early days, but the way a tired child misses his bed. She knew he would be among the guests tonight. As always, she couldn’t imagine a future with him in it, not even where they might meet that evening, or what either of them might say. On these points, her mind was a perfect blank, as if she had walked up to a white wall that stretched endlessly in both directions. But her heart hummed and her skin was alive with anticipation.

“A midnight blue,” Liza said. “Black ribbons.”

“No,” Carolina said.

“Red velvet, with blue trim.”

“That’s a winter dress.”

Liza shuffled through the depths of the closet.

“Blue watered silk,” she said.

When Carolina didn’t answer, she tried again. “Turquoise with navy trim.”

“Are they all blue?” Carolina asked, half as a joke, half to hear Liza’s retort.

To Carolina’s surprise, Liza refused to be provoked.

“White lace,” she said. “With light blue trim.”

“The sleeves are short?” Carolina asked. “Just bits of lace?”

“And lace at the neck,” Liza said. “With the blue trim around it.”

“Bring it to me,” Carolina said.

Obediently, Liza laid the dress over Carolina’s knees, the bodice in her lap and the wide skirts spilling onto the floor. Carolina fingered the stiff lace, following its curve around the bodice to the covered buttons at the back of the neck.

“All right,” she said.

Liza lifted the dress from her lap. Carolina stood and let her robe fall onto the chair.

“Here,” Liza said. She rustled the gown on the floor in front of Carolina. Carolina marked its place with her foot, then stepped onto the swath of exposed carpet between the folds of fabric. When Carolina had her footing, Liza raised the dress and guided Carolina’s hands through the sleeves. Then she circled behind Carolina and began to fasten the long row of buttons.

Carolina ran her hands down into the folds of silk that fell from her hips. “It still fits,” she said.

Liza didn’t answer until she had fastened the last button. “There,” she said.

“I’ll need some flowers for my hair,” Carolina said. “But not very many. I can pin them myself.”

“There are some waiting,” Liza said. “Giovanni picked them this morning, but the cook wouldn’t let him bring them up yet.”

“Send him, then,” Carolina said.

Instead of stalking off as she normally did, Liza lingered.

“Thank you,” Carolina added after a moment, uneasy.

At the door, Liza stopped again. “Can I get you anything else?” she asked.

“That’s all,” Carolina said shortly, frowning in confusion.

Pietro had been at the lake all afternoon overseeing the preparations for Contessa Rossi’s party, so it was Giovanni who led Carolina from the house, down the slope to the riverside. Dozens of voices already rose there: laughter and greetings and contradictory commands on the best procedure for launching the boats full of guests. Carolina strained to hear, her skin electric, but she didn’t catch Turri’s among them.

“I would be glad to stay with you,” Giovanni said, gripping her hand proprietarily as they made their way down the slight incline. “You might want a glass of wine, or need to send a message.”

“Thank you, Giovanni,” she said. “I’m afraid they will take very good care of me.”

“Now the master has seen us,” Giovanni said, with a trace of resentment. “He will be here any minute.”

The voices by the water dropped as she approached, until Carolina could tell she was only steps away from the crowd. She came to a stop. “You’ve been such a help,” she said.

Giovanni squeezed her hand passionately before releasing it. “You look like an angel from heaven,” he managed, as if giving up a military secret under some great threat.

“Carolina!” Pietro said, kissing the side of her face. “I have been in every one of these damned skiffs this afternoon. Your mother was convinced that we live too far inland to build boats that won’t sink.”

“Did any of them sink?”

“No, but I almost drowned the cook,” Pietro said. “We had to put the musicians out to sea already. They were throwing sausage at them on land, as if it was some new kind of game.” He noticed Giovanni, still standing by. “Well, all right,” Pietro said. “You’ve delivered her. No need to stand there.”

“Thank you,” Carolina called after Giovanni’s retreating footsteps.

“I am going to put you in line for a boat,” Pietro said. “I would bring you to the front, but you don’t want any of the ones we’re loading now.”

Out on the river, the musicians began to tune their instruments. Scraps of song flared up and then winked out again, lovely but incongruent, like a mural seen by the light of a single candle.

“Here we are,” Pietro said after a few steps. “Can I bring you something? We have lemon tarts and olives. No more sausages.”

“Carolina,” Turri said, and touched her arm lightly.

A thrill of fear ran through her whole body, chased quickly by heat.

“Hello,” she said.

“Turri!” Pietro said heartily. “What do you think of our little party? Was it worth me soaking my feet?”

“I like it very much,” Turri said. “The boats shaped like swans, the servant girls in wings.”

“The boats are not shaped like swans,” Pietro interrupted. “There is no need to tease her because she can’t see.”

“It’s all right,” Carolina said, and pressed his arm.

“A boat for Contessa,” the servant announced from the water. “Sir, you will come, too?”

“No,” Pietro said. “God only knows what will happen if I leave these creatures alone. This is a boat, not a swan, Turri. Do you think you can manage to get my wife safely to the lake?”

If Turri gave an answer, it wasn’t spoken. He took Carolina’s arm and led her down the bank.