Already there is blood.
As the painter’s boatman turns the gondola into a narrow canal, I see a stocky man—surely too old for such foolery—standing at the crest of a rickety wooden bridge with red streaming from a gash in his forehead. Strangely, he is smiling. The man stumbles backward, and the crowd that has gathered to cheer on the bloodshed heaves to catch him as he reels.
The Carnival brawling has begun.
They are not allowed, of course, not since the Council of Ten outlawed such bridge fights only a few years ago. But the decree has only made the skirmishes more anticipated and more exciting to watch, at least so my cousin Paolo says. Now, more crowds than ever before gather to cheer on grown men who bloody themselves for sport.
On the left side of the bridge, I recognize the colors of the castellani, the men of the ship-building quarters of Castello, San Marco, and Dorsoduro. A few lanky boys lead the charge, coursing over the crest of the bridge and pushing back the nicolotti—their adversaries from the remaining quarters—including my own.
But I do not cheer on my own team of fishermen cast against the ship-builders. I find the fights distasteful, well-respected men acting like belligerents. The painter’s boatman seems to think differently. As we pass under the crooked wooden slats of the bridge, he lets out an ear-splitting roar that echoes across the water. I lean forward on my knees and cover my ears. I hear his loud cackle muffled in my head.
At last, we push through the boat traffic surrounding the bridge and leave the dispersing crowd behind us. Ahead, in the San Marco quarter, the aroma of fried dough is overwhelming. The air seems thicker than I can ever recall with the sticky-sweet smell of chiacchiere, the tiny twists of pastry made only at Carnival time. My mouth waters as I can almost taste the warm bread drizzled with honey melting on my tongue.
Even the sky has turned a happy shade of pink. The Carnival season is always like this, lifting the long shadows of winter that have cast their grey mantle over the façades along the canal. But I do not feel its brightness, its usual sense of hope and excitement. Not this time.
I run my palm over the green upholstery of the wooden chair set in the painter’s gondola, trying to derive some sense of comfort from the smell of dough and the plush texture of the velvet. For days I have felt on the verge of panic, trying to calm my frantic heart while at the same time trying to summon my menses through force of sheer will.
For years I had no idea about such things, for I have never had a mother or any other female in my house to tell me about them. When I was small, a mean older girl down the alley told me that the devil came to visit every girl once a month, and I was terrified. When blood appeared in my undergarments in my twelfth year, I thought I was dying or had surely been possessed. My father tried to explain it to me but did not have the words. A neighbor woman took pity on me and did her best to inform me about the way that babies came into the world. Only years later, in the deep envelop of Cristiano’s embrace, did any of it begin to make sense.
I try to distract myself by counting the variety of boats trafficking the Grand Canal: a modest water-seller’s boat; a flat-bottomed skiff to ferry passengers from one side of the wide canal to the other; a fine gondola with gilded ornamentation on the prow. Behind me, the boatman presses the oar into the oarlock. I steal a glance at him, his woolen scarf pulled tight around his neck, his dark locks brushing against the crooked scar beneath his eye.
The oar makes swirling patterns in the water, stirring shards of colored Carnival confetti. The multicolored scraps of paper are the detritus of parties that people insist on hosting even though the authorities of Our Most Serene Republic have warned us that congregating in large groups might spread contagion. I watch the shards of paper float and spin on the surface of the dark canal waters until their colors begin to blur through stifled tears.
On the quayside, butchers, fishmongers, and fruit-sellers have set up makeshift tables in a neighborhood morning market along the bank of the rio San Lorenzo. A pair of men wearing masks runs past, grabbing handfuls of apples as the fruit seller yells at them. I contemplate a slimy trickle of yellow yolk on a pink façade, the result of naughty boys who throw spoiled eggs at one another and at well-dressed but unlucky ladies who walk under their windows at an ill-timed moment.
Though Carnival season has begun to overtake Our Most Excellent Republic, I feel as though I am watching it unfold from far away, through the veil of a dream. Everything around me appears normal, but I am not really present. I feel as though I am floating above myself, watching myself go through daily activities. I cannot begin to grasp that there may be a living being developing inside my body, that I may be a vessel for human life.
I feel the boatman’s eyes on me, and the back of my neck prickles. I am accustomed to people staring at me, of course. It is my hair. In the sunlight, the strands of red glint and sparkle like golden threads, at least so I have been told. I attempt to look the boatman in the eye. Usually this makes people look away, ashamed for having been caught staring at my reddish locks. But his eyes meet mine, and he does not waver. I do my best not to let it show, but I am unnerved.
“You are not engaged to be married?” he blurts, cocking his head to one side. From under a new-looking rust-colored cap, his eyes stay steady, studying my face. Strands of greasy black hair hang across the boatman’s cheeks. I imagine that Trevisan has supplied the velvet hat and the brocade waistcoat to make his boatman look elegant, but no amount of dressing can change his unnerving presence.
I do not answer but instead turn my gaze from the boatman’s face to the horizon. I do not like that I am the first to turn my face away. Surely I do not owe him an explanation?
I implore you to keep your distance. You do not want to get yourself involved with him.
The words of the painter’s wife ring in my head.
“Your father has betrothed you to someone?” he tries again.
“No,” I say, perhaps too quickly, but I ponder his query.
In truth, the question of my marriage was delayed for longer than even my father might have imagined. I have lost count of the requests that my father’s colleagues in the guild have made of me. These men were intelligent enough to realize that the daughter of the indoradòr would be an asset in their own painting workshops. But as much as my father understood the potential for an advantageous barter, I believe he viewed keeping me in his own workshop as even more desirable. If I married, it meant that I no longer belonged to my father. It meant moving to another man’s house. My father would be left with Paolo to rely upon, and our workshop would suffer. All of us knew it, but it went unspoken for all these years.
The truth is that they needed me. The truth is that they need me now. I feel the sting of my father’s rejection as if it were fresh. My stomach clenches into a knot again, and I feel that I might vomit.
“Surely there is someone you want?” The boatman prods again, screwing up one side of his mouth in an exaggerated smirk.
“I cannot see how that is any of your concern,” I manage to say, pulling my shawl tightly around my shoulders and turning away from his gaze. I feel his eyes on me, but he does not respond. I do not want to share any of this information with the boatman. I do not want to fall under his gaze any more at all. I duck into the passenger compartment, and the chaos of Carnevale falls away.
As soon as I sink into the upholstered cushions, I feel the weight of the irony that my father has sent me to Trevisan’s house. After all the years of keeping me sheltered from a potential husband, love came to find me at home. And then I was the one who was pushed out of the house.
“I have been negligent; please forgive me,” my father said. “Now I see that is past time for you to be married, Maria,” he told me as he helped heave my trunk to the canal-side mooring behind our workshop, his eyes heavy but his jaw set. “When you come back from your apprenticeship with your newfound painting skills, I will have found a husband for you.” It was supposed to make me feel better about leaving.
As my father and I watched our neighborhood glide by from our seats in the painter’s fine gondola, I thought that surely any moment, my father would change his mind, tell me it was all a mistake. Instead, the façade of the painter’s house came into view, with its soft brick and lovely archways. Surely any minute Father would tell me that it was a cruel joke, that we would turn the boat around and go back home. Instead, my trunk was lifted onto the wooden dock outside Master Trevisan’s studio. Instead, a hand appeared to help me up out of the boat and onto the wooden planks. Instead, my father planted a dry kiss on my forehead and let me go.
Perhaps I was naive to expect to stay in my father’s house forever. I do not try to imagine what my father would say to me now, or what the future will be like. I cannot imagine myself with a baby. More than that, I cannot imagine my life without Cristiano. I do not want a husband that my father cobbles together for me from amongst the men of our guild. I want him. Cristiano. Our battiloro.
When I return, what will the man my father has chosen for me think of his disgraced fiancée? Women have been sent to the Doge’s prisons or banished to convents for lesser offenses. And what will my father think of me? I cannot begin to propose an answer to any of these questions.
Inside the shadows of the gondola’s passenger compartment, I sink down into the damask cushions piled onto the bench. I close my eyes and push my face into one of the pillows, and wonder if I am capable of taking my own life.
I imagine lowering myself over the edge of the gondola, feeling the cold water envelop me. The world would turn blue and green, the moss-covered pilings around me disintegrating into shimmering blurs. I imagine my hair floating out above my head, its tangled strands catching wet shards of Carnival confetti as I sink into the muted depths. The water fills my ears and quiets the noise of the outside world. I cross my arms over my chest and imagine sinking all the way down to the bottom of the lagoon.