The Passion of Artemisia (21 page)

“Strange how a person can live in a place all his life and never think to do this,” Pietro said. He was indulging me in this with all good humor. It was good of him, and wrong of me to transfer my hate of Vanna onto him.

When the bell ringer opened the tower door, we dashed out to stop him from leaving.

“We are artists,” Pietro said, “and we'd like to take a look at the Duomo from the top of the tower.”

“For a drawing for the Accademia del Disegno.”

He looked at me suspiciously. “Both of you? Artists?”

“If you let us just step inside—,” I said. He moved back to let us get out of the rain. I opened my cloak and showed him my insignia from the academy. Pietro pressed two lire into his palm.

“You picked a wretched day to do a fool thing like this.”

“What does it matter to you?” Pietro said, a bit surly.

The bell ringer shrugged. “Suit yourself.” He waved us up.

We ascended the steep stone steps inside a double wall closing us in on both sides and closing out the world. The stairs went around the perimeter in a large square until the first
piano
, and on this level open arches between delicate twisted columns let us see out. The tower of the Palazzo
Vecchio was all the more magnificent because the structure supporting the upper tier of crenellations was much taller from this height than it appeared from the ground. Houses, streets, and people looked unreal, like boxes and puppets.

“Maybe this is what it looks like to God,” I said.

Pietro smiled at the notion.

Above the first
piano
, steps went in a tight circle at the corner in order not to obstruct the open arches. Pietro lifted my cloak so it wouldn't drag against the three-hundred-year-old stone steps. I had to stop and rest on the way. He let me lean on him. His chest heaved under my cheek.

At the second open level, wind through the arches buffeted us. We disturbed a family of pigeons in a crevice and they flapped and flew below us. “Strange to look down on birds flying, isn't it?” I asked. We were almost at eye level with the base of the barrel vault that supported the big brick dome of the cathedral.

“Imagine the excitement of people to see that dome rise,” Pietro said. “When a boy was born, it wasn't there, and when he was old enough to notice, the dome started to grow, and when he had a boy of his own, the stone ribs met and the dome was closed. What a time to live.” He put his hand on my shoulder as we looked. I didn't move so his hand would rest there a moment longer, until we started up again.

“You know, this tower was finished a hundred years before the dome was,” Pietro said. “How many times do you think Brunelleschi climbed these very steps to get a look at what he was building?”

“Not every day!”

“No, but I'd wager at least once a month. I would have.”

We didn't stop at the open third level, we were so eager to reach the top. We were breathing heavily. Once I didn't lift
my foot high enough and it caught on a step which pitched me forward. Pietro grabbed me from behind and kept his hands just under my breasts, holding me against him until I breathed normally again.

A couple more spirals, Pietro opened a door, and we stepped out. Rain lashed against us, and pricked my cheeks like needles. Our cloaks flapped and billowed and threatened to blow away unless we held onto them. To be so high, with nothing more than a waist-high wall blocking us from being blown right off the tower frightened and thrilled me at the same time.

“Look!” I cried. “You can see the pattern of bricks on the dome.” We had to shout to make ourselves heard.

He took me by the hand and we walked around the square, looking in all directions—at the dome of San Lorenzo, the white façade of Santa Croce, the roof of Vasari's Corridor over Ponte Vecchio, the Pitti Palace and its gardens, and beyond that, the gray and ghostly hills—all of Florence in one sweep.

“Think of all the thousands of people who have lived here and have never seen this,” I said.

More slowly, we walked around the square again. He leaned over the ledge.

“Attenti!”
I shouted.

My panic for him made him stand back and look at me softly. “It's all right. I'll be careful.”

The ledge was slippery. He leaned over it again. I held on to his arm with both hands. “Oh, Artemisia!” he cried in awe. “The people down there are so small! The stones of the piazza are like grains of salt. You've got to see this. Here, I'll hold you.”

He put his arms around me so that I felt safe, and I leaned only a little over the ledge. Wind whipped back my hood and rain soaked my hair. “Ohhh!” Blown every which way, rain
glazed the city's walls, the medallions on the walls, the niches, the statues in the niches. “Hold me tighter!” I cried, feeling dizzy, and when he did, I leaned out farther. My hair came unpinned and snapped back at him.

I had the sensation that the whole stone tower was swaying in the storm. I closed my eyes. “The Earth
is
moving,” I shouted. “It's not an illusion. Can you feel it, Pietro? Galilei was right! Just think. We're whizzing through the universe.”

He pulled me back and turned me, and my cloak blew out behind me. His lips were on mine, wet and smooth and luscious, sliding over my throat, my eyes, and mine on his, juicy and urgent in the shivery thrill of the unexpected. Don't ask why, I told myself. I ran my hands through his wet hair. He took hold of my wet breast, pressed his loins hard against me, making me quiver and press back.

We let the rain blow on us, rinsing our hearts of suspicion and hurt, and held each other in the swirl of wind and feelings, our knees weak, his eyes slicked with rain, both of us lifted by the storm above all earthly injury, both of us longing for what was possible once, both of us desperate for what we knew was lost.

We made love that night with all the urgent, bittersweet misery of lovers soon to part. There were no words between us. I commanded my mind to think of nothing but the present moment, in fact not to think at all, but just to feel—his hands like a sculptor's stroking his creation, his tongue on my throat, his hand up my thigh, then his knee urging me to open, to ride out the sea of storm with him again and again until the swells subsided.

I fell asleep thinking of the incomprehensible, baffling order of the universe that kept planets in their courses,
birds in flight, and towers from tumbling down. In this universe where I knew now we were not the center, where I was as insignificant and unremarkable as a grain of salt seen from a tower, God still allowed me to take my next breath.

16
Graziela

W
atch me, Mama.”

I was pulling up a bucket of water at the well while Palmira hopped in a circle around a dandelion growing between paving stones, singing a song about the moon that Fina had taught her. I commended her halfheartedly, and then noticed globes of dandelions all over the courtyard, like pale moons on stiff stalks—Galileo's moons of Jupiter that I never got to see.

I picked one, held it to my lips ready to blow off the tufts, and went through my litany of wishes—that some day I could see Galileo's real moons, that Palmira would grow up to be a fine, respected painter, that Umiliana was working as a model now and would never have to go back to the vats. And then I admitted the wishes I felt more sharply—that I had never hired Vanna, never, out of generosity, let Pietro draw her nude, that our time in the tower had meant more to Pietro than a fleeting burst of passion, that he would recognize he was wrong not to love me, that he would come home tonight and tell me that he'd left her.

Too many wishes for one mere dandelion. Under present circumstances, I knew if I had only one wish, it would have to be this—that I could earn my way.

I closed my eyes, and felt the wish as truly as I could above all others, though I had to push aside the bell tower and Pietro's firm hands on my buttocks pressing me against him. I blew the dandelion, and thought, God still allowed me to take my next breath, yes. Wind did not blow us off the tower. These things should have made me feel cared for, but they didn't.

When I opened my eyes, I saw a small ragged boy standing outside our courtyard gate.

“I have a message for Signora Gentileschi,” he said in a high-pitched voice taut with responsibility.

“I am Signora Gentileschi.” I reached my hand between the wooden slats, expecting a letter.

“It's only here,” the boy said, and pointed to his mouth open in a perfect O. “I'm supposed to tell you to go to the Church of Santa Trinità and ask for Sister Veronica.”

“When?”

“Now.”

“Why? What else do you know?”

“Nothing, only Sister Veronica said for you to come alone.”

I thanked him and offered him a dipper of water through the slats of the gate.

“I want to go too.” Palmira flung herself backward against the gate.

“No, you'll have to go to Fina.”

She stamped her foot. “I
always
have to go to Fina.” She mimicked my intonation, but allowed me to drag her upstairs.

The Church of Santa Trinità was up the Lungarno past the hide-tanning neighborhood. I tried not to breathe its rotten
sharpness. I'd been to Santa Trinità once to see the enormous cross for Sister Paola's sake. Now, when I opened the heavy door, I was happy to breathe the musky scent of wax and incense. A nun standing near the tray of candles greeted me and introduced herself as Sister Veronica.

“I am Artemisia Gentileschi.”

“May I show you the church?” she asked.

“Please.”

We walked down the nave. To the right of the high altar she drew me into a side chapel. “These frescoes illustrate the life of Saint Francis. They're by Ghirlandaio.” From her wide sleeve she pulled out a tiny cloth drawstring bag. She lowered her voice. “Sister Graziela of Santa Trinità in Rome sent this hidden in a shipment of dried herbs. Her note instructed me to give it to you, with apologies if it smells like oregano.”

I smiled and held it to my nose. “Yes, oregano, and rosemary too.” I slipped it up my sleeve.

“And here in this panel you see Saint Francis performing a miracle, restoring a dead child after he fell from an upper story. Right here in Piazza Santa Trinità.”

“Oh, yes. I recognize the church façade there in the painting.”

We made a circuit of the church and at the door I thanked her and passed her a lira. “For your order.”

She bowed her head in thanks.

At home I untied the string and tipped out the earring—Graziela's pearl drop. On a scrap of paper edged with Graziela's leafy tendrils were the words, “Sell the pair. Buy paint.”

A warm wave passed through me. I touched the earring to my lips and closed my eyes, sure that I had never understood love till now.

Some weeks later, just when I thought I'd have to appeal to Pietro for money—I couldn't bear to sell Graziela's
earrings—I received a letter from a Genoese merchant, Cesare Gentile. I tore it open eagerly. He had seen my work at the Pitti, he said, and was interested in having me do a large painting of one figure, a female nude, the identity to be decided upon my arrival in Genoa. He offered me a moderate sum, a room and studio in his palace, and possible further commissions if my first pleased him. A cry and a sigh escaped me.

Ce-sa-re, imperial and grand. Gen-ti-le, kindly and tender. His name seemed a good sign.

“
Grazie a Dio!
Palmira, we are saved.” I grabbed Palmira's hands, leaned back, and we swung together in a circle until her little feet lifted off the floor and she squealed.

“What about Papa?” she asked.

“Pietro can come too, if he wants.”

But it was my own papa her question reminded me of. Father was in Genoa. Writing to him occasionally was one thing. Living in the same city was another. How could I act as though nothing had happened between us—especially in front of Palmira?

I'd have to try.

I looked up and saw behind her my unfinished drawing from the loggia, the Sabine woman celebrated at the moment she was being raped. Just like Rome, Florence was a man's city, made of stone by men like Lorenzo il magnifico and Brunelleschi, with reputations as solid as stone. Stone that was cold right through your shoes in winter, blazing hot in summer. The only woman they liked was the pathetic, penitent Magdalen. This was not a city kind to women.

Maybe Genoa would be different.

Genoa didn't have Pietro.

Neither did I.