Under a birch tree in the quiet garden behind San Giovanni Elemosinario, I find a few stolen moments of bliss.
“I have only a minute,” I whisper into his ear as he presses my body to him. His strong hands are laced behind the small of my back. I turn my head toward the gate. “The painter’s servant woman. I left her at the fruit seller’s table. I invented an excuse but she will be looking for me soon enough.” My lips sting from his ardent kiss, a kiss that has brought me back to life from the brink of despair.
“All that matters is that you are here,” Cristiano says, and I press my flushed face into his chest, inhaling his scent as if to imbibe him to the core of my soul, as if the very smell of him might sustain me for seven days. I fill my nose with musk, leather, and dust from my father’s workshop.
“My father…” I say, raising my eyes to meet his. “And Paolo?”
“They are well,” Cristiano says.
I search his face to see if he is telling the truth. “You are not just trying to console me?”
He pauses, then sets his eyes on me. “Your father… He had one of those breathing fits,” he says.
I feel my throat clench.
“I made a tea of honey and garlic,” he says. “He recovered quickly.”
“How did you know to do that?”
“You think I have not been watching your every move for months now?” He laughs.
I feel my face flush. I do not admit that I have also been studying him more closely than I have ever studied anything in my life.
“Anyway, it worked. Maria, they are fine,” he says again. “I swear it.” His teeth flash, and I feel myself exhale for the first time in days.
“I brought something for you,” he says. I feel him pull away and reach into the pocket of the leather apron he always wears. He pulls out a small hammered gold ingot strung onto a black velvet cord, and presses it into my palm. “I made it,” he says.
I turn the golden rock over in my hand, watching it glow in the evening light. “Beautiful,” I say. He takes it from me and runs his hands along either side of my neck. I watch his jet-black eyes flicker before he presses his lips behind my ear and fixes the clasp.
“I will never take it off.” I press the golden ingot down into my dress where no one will see it, then kiss him again, a long, lingering, tender exchange that I wish would never end. “I want to stay here with you forever,” I say, running my palm along his forearm. “My only consolation is that I will see you in two days’ time. We will have to pretend as usual around my father’s table, but it will do for now.”
Cristiano pulls me to a crumbling stone bench under the tree. He kneels to the ground and takes my hands in his. A shadow passes his face. “Maria. I did not know how to tell you. It was nearly impossible for me to get here, and I do not know if I will be able to come again,” he says.
My heart drops like a stone, to the depths of the canal beside us.
“What?”
“The contagion… It is spreading. I don’t want you to worry, but they are taking precautions. I will try my best to come again next Friday but we have seen the signori di notte patrolling the square.” He fixes me with a soft smile. Comforting, apologetic. I feel his fingers at the nape of my neck. “People are saying that they will close the streets.”
“Ragazza! Where have you gone?”
Antonella. Her raspy voice echoes from the other side of the monastery wall. She is looking for me.
A hundred questions race through my head, but my breath feels caught in my chest and I cannot seem to say anything at all.