The Passion of Artemisia (28 page)

I was dizzy and my neck hurt, yet I couldn't stop looking up. I had posed for Father many times, but I never knew he was going to use one of the drawings here. Then I
was
on his mind in those afternoons after court adjourned. And furthermore, he had imagined what the trial and the years ahead would do to me. I reached for Palmira and held her against me.

“You're right. It
is
me,” I murmured.

After Palmira went to sleep that night, I sat sipping wine and wondering if Father thought of me often. If he ever talked about me. To Agostino, or to anyone. If he were ever lonesome. If he were lonesome right now. If he ever thought of Mother. I hoped he was happy, or at least was painting well . . . even with Agostino. I leaned out the window to feel the night's deep blue, the same dark air that surrounded him in Genoa or Paris or wherever he was. I would give a great deal to know what he was thinking right at this moment. If a person could know for certain what the other person was thinking or doing, then loneliness might cease to exist in the world.

I thought of Pietro and tried to imagine what he was doing right now. Was he with Vanna? Had he given himself completely to her now that I was gone? Could he? Did he ever think of me?

Had I done something similar to what Father had done, sacrificed a person for my art? I was filled with a longing to apologize to Pietro. To apologize to Palmira. Had I hurt people out of selfish impulsiveness? I yearned to apologize to Cesare and Bianca and Renata, and put our lives back the way they were, but that was impossible. Love is so easily bruised by the necessity of making choices.

I'd heard once that an English queen had denied herself
suitors in order to wed England, and I understood at what cost.

A moon of startling brightness rose over the rooftops, lifted on a divine, invisible thread, like a paper circle held before a cat. What I had seen at the Borghese casino made it impossible to sleep. I took out writing paper but I didn't know where Father lived now. Instead I wrote:

I heated water and washed my hair and Palmira's in the stone sink.

“Ouch, you're digging too hard,” she cried.

“Doesn't it feel good to have your scalp scratched? Makes you feel more alive.”

“But you're hurting me. Let me do it.”

Reluctantly, I stepped back to relinquish this pleasure of motherhood, but I couldn't take my eyes away from the sweet, slender taper of the back of her soapy neck.

“Let's go see the sisters today,” I said. “I want to give Graziela some pigments. Take your embroidery to show to Sister Paola. If she isn't busy, she can teach you a new stitch.”

“She knows how?”

“Of course. She's made beautiful vestments for the monsignori. With gold thread, too.”

I braided her hair wet so it would keep the waves, and I wound the braids on top of her head. “There. Now you look like a little lady.”

We found Graziela sitting on the L-shaped bench in a corner of the cloisters, doing nothing. I'd never found her doing nothing before. “Is she praying?” I asked Paola.

“No. Just brooding.”

Her face came alive when she saw us.

“Are you all right?” I asked.

“I am as God wishes. Did you find a place to live?”

“After some trouble. People still remember. It's been thirteen years and they still remember.”

Graziela looked with concern at Palmira and then back at me.

“I told her. She knows.” I sat down next to Graziela. “People didn't want to rent to us. Yesterday we went to Cardinal Borghese's casino to see my father's work, and the cardinal's clerk was rude to me, right in front of Palmira. He asked if I came back to Rome for more rape. People are still beasts here.”

“Those with more sublime faith than ours would see even in this, the working of His loving hand.”

I looked at her in disbelief. Where had her compassion gone? “He said I painted out of my own whoredom! Where is God's love in that?”

Immediately Paola tried to get Palmira to go out to the herb garden with her, but Palmira plopped herself decisively on the other angle of the bench and Paola sat beside her.

“God's love is in how one reacts to that,” Graziela said. “When Constantine was told that the Roman rabble had stoned the head of his statue, he raised his hands to his head and said, ‘How remarkable. I don't feel the least bit hurt.' A woman your age whining over what some mean-spirited clerk says is not an attractive picture, however you paint it.”

I was hot with embarrassment for her saying this in front of Palmira.

“Look what you've done in those years,” she went on. “You've lived in three magnificent cities and seen the greatest buildings and sculpture and painting in Italy. You've had the experience of love with a man. You bore a beautiful, healthy child. You have earned your own way and had your talent recognized by one of the most prestigious courts in the land. Other women would thank the Lord on their knees for even one of those things.”

Palmira looked from Graziela to me. I felt small and selfish. “I know. I know.”

“I had hoped you would have let that go, Artemisia.”

“I thought I had, until my father betrayed me again, in Genoa.”

“So? There's got to be a time when daughters tear themselves loose from their father's shortsighted mistakes. Believe me. I know.”

I felt the reminder of her own father's betrayal as sharp and hard as a tack in my throat.

“I wouldn't wish resentment on my worst enemy. It's a killing thing. Don't tell me you haven't progressed beyond that in thirteen years.”

“I have.”

“Then sit up straight and tell me what you've learned.”

“From what?”

“Start with yesterday. Borghese's casino.”

“Stupendous. It's a ceiling fresco of musicians and listeners on an illusionary balcony.” I saw it again in my mind and it made me proud.

“Yes. And . . .”

“Father and Agostino painted together magnificently. Father could never do that complicated architectural perspective without Agostino, and he knew it. He would have ruined the project and his career would have been over. He had to end the trial.” With an even voice as free of hurt as I could make it, I added, “He sacrificed my reputation and art for his.”

Graziela searched my face.

“I'm not saying whether it was a despicable or a noble choice, only that it was a choice that showed a willingness to pay the inevitable price.”

“Given a similar choice, wouldn't you have done the same?”

I watched Palmira swinging her legs.

“Yes.”

“What does that tell you?”

“At some times in our lives, our passion makes us
perpetrators of hurt and loss. At other times we are the ones who are hurt—all in the name of art. Sometimes we get what we want. Sometimes we pay for another to get what he or she wants.” I looked at Palmira apologetically. “That's the way the world works.”

“And forgiveness?”

I uncrossed my ankles, planted my feet as if at the edge of a precipice. “I learned that forgiveness is not easy.”

“But it's possible.”

“Yes, it's possible.”

After a moment, I said to Palmira, “Show Sister Paola what you're working on.” She lifted her embroidery out of our drawstring bag.

“Ooh, that's lovely!” Paola said, and engaged her by naming stitches after saints.

I reached into the bag and brought out the small cakes of pigments wrapped in paper. Graziela's eyes welled up as she opened them. “They're beautiful colors, and they'd make brilliant pages. It's just that. . . without seeing anything new, I keep painting the same things.”

I understood that. Art builds on art. I'd be stifled and repetitive too if I couldn't see new forms and new combinations of colors and new compositions.

“Tell me about Venice,” Graziela said. “Paint a picture for me right now.”

Some quiet desperation in the forward lean of her body made me comply.

“In Venice every shape of pinnacle, dome, spire, cupola, and parapet rises above the rooftops—flat roofs with balustrades for viewing the city. Statues on one palace roof look across the canals to statues on another roof. Above the keystones of palace arches, the carved masks are tilted downward in order to be more visible from gondolas. Everything's for show.”

Graziela's unfocused eyes were staring at the paving
stones in front of her but I felt sure she was seeing canals and cupolas. She curled her fingers toward her chest, urging more.

“Crooked alleys suddenly open onto hidden piazzas. Narrow canals turn unexpectantly. We were always lost.”

I looked to my side. Palmira was intent on learning a new stitch from Paola.

“Genoa was all right to be alone in,” I continued more softly, “but Venice—every loggia, every bridge, every stone in Venice was designed as a setting for moonlit trysts, clandestine meetings, hot clasped hands.”

Graziela's long fingers stretched beyond her black sleeve and rested on my knee. Palmira's legs came to rest.

“And Florence?”

What was behind this urgency?

“Every small or insignificant church in the city has masterworks hardly seen that any other city would boast of as their
opera più importante.
” I gave her more detailed descriptions than I had in my letters in case she was searching for an idea for an illuminated page, but the more I told her, the more desperate she was for more.

Graziela scowled when I paused. “Tell me again about Masaccio.”

I looked at Paola for some guidance. She only winced and lifted her shoulders.

“What a genius. Masaccio wrenched my heart when I saw his Adam hiding his tortured face, and Eve wailing a cry that reached right into my soul. I couldn't sleep the night after I saw it.”

“Was that your favorite thing?”

“No. Giotto's bell tower was. Next to Santa Maria del Fiore, self-standing, taller than you can imagine, like God's own reliquary reaching toward Heaven. It has rows of narrow arches separated by twisted pillars to give it lightness,
and it's faced with marble. In rain it has the sheen of white, rose, and pale green satin. Beauty enough to break your heart.”

“And Rome?”

“Rome you know.”

“Not anymore.” Her voice cracked. Shiny rivulets trailed down her cheeks.

Paola, Palmira and I looked at each other, perplexed, not knowing what to say.