The boatman opens his wide, calloused palm and offers it to me as I lift the hem of my skirts to step into the gondola.
“That is not my name,” I say, catching my balance and eschewing the boatman’s hand. I sit on the elaborately carved and lacquered wooden chair perched on the back side of the passenger compartment as the gondola sways gently. “Just Maria.”
The boatman takes his place on the aft deck and presses the oar into the stone quayside, pushing the boat away from it. Then he presses the oar against the dark water and moves out from the narrow canal. The convent wall and the gaping opening of its foundling window fall from view as we move into the flat, open water of the canal.
The boatman projects a wad of spittle into the water and tries again. “But people call you Maria Magdalena all the time. No? How could they not?”
He is right, of course, but I do not concede that all my life people have likened me to that great sinner of the Bible, making the comparison either aloud or in their own heads. It is my fate that my hair falls down my back in waves the same way that Mary Magdalene is shown in thousands of altarpieces and painted miniatures. I keep it braided and neatly tucked into my cap as much as possible.
We turn into the Grand Canal, and the vast shimmer of the Venetian lagoon comes into view, with its infinite variety of boats. From the quayside near the Doge’s palace, a consul is being escorted into a gilded gondola bedecked with golden birds and scarlet curtains. Beyond, several dozen cargo boats, private gondolas, and public ferries traffic the great basin that extends between the Piazza San Marco and the island of San Giorgio Maggiore. In the distance, a cadre of men is rowing a large ferry between Murano and San Marco.
“Maria Magdalena, just like her,” the boatman tries to provoke me again. “No wonder you are the painter’s new favorite.” Above my head the boatman’s paunch bulges over his leather belt, and he is chewing on something with gray, square teeth that make me think of the mules lined up near the docks where people travel to terra firma.
“The painter is seeing to my education,” I say. I turn back to the vista in the canal, feeling the cool, damp air whip fine strands of hair across my mouth. I have been taught to distrust boatmen. Who has not heard their foul language echoing down the canals, seen them clapped in the stocks for smuggling goods or extorting passengers?
“Well,” says the boatman, spitting again, “I would advise you to be cautious of that painter.”
In spite of my better judgment, I ask, “Why do you say that?”
“I should know,” he says, poking his thumb into his chest. “I have worked for the man for a long time. I tried to pry myself away from him for a while. Would not have come back at all if I had had any other choice.”
“You left for another position?”
The boatman puffs air loudly. “I am a guildsman, and therefore I am bound to work for others, am I not? I know how to steer a boat, not much else. I am good at it, too, by the way.”
“You have worked in the Arsenale?” I ask, gesturing toward the part of the city where our Doge’s great shipyard lies. The Arsenale employs most of our men in the boatbuilding and related trades.
The boatman shrugs. “It is not so easy as people think to convince them to hire you,” he says. I watch his fingertips brush the deeply burned scar in the flesh below his eye, a fleeting gesture of which I am not sure the boatman is aware. “Then there was no work at the ferry stations, and anyway, that painter would not agree to bear witness on my account, so...” He trails off.
“So you took your old position back,” I say.
“You could say that,” he says, “but mostly I came back because the painter owes me money. If I wanted any chance of getting back what he is bound to me, I had no choice but to return. Heh! Casso!” the boatman bursts suddenly, making a rude gesture with a meaty hand. I turn to see a cargo boat blocking the narrow canal where we are trying to pass. A skinny boatman is unloading crates from the grimy skiff onto a wooden dock on the back side of a shop. The boatman utters a stream of obscenities under his breath. The skinny boy turns around slowly to meet the boatman’s gaze.
“You cannot dock there, Sior,” the boatman yells, mocking a noble way of speaking by emphasizing Sior in Venetian with a sarcastic lilt. He spits into the canal through his square teeth. “What are people thinking?” he growls to me under his breath. I watch the skinny boy raise his hand in supplication, then back the skiff awkwardly out into the wide part of the canal. We resume our path.
“How does the painter owe you money?” I venture, not certain if I want to engage him further, but I am curious.
The boatman wends his way around the skiff and resumes rowing. “Normally I am paid my salary every fifteen days, but when I left he was already in debt to me by nearly three months. We had already agreed on the contract. By my calculations he owes me for nearly a half year’s worth of work.”
“Why did he not pay you on time?”
“That is what I am trying to tell you, Maria Magdalena. “These people,” he says, gesturing to the tall houses lining the canal, “they cannot be trusted. He was trying to retain me, to make me indebted to him.”
“And surely you are.”
He shrugs again, and one side of his mouth turns up. “At least he must trust me, for he has sent me out with a lady alone in a boat. Now that is a delicate proposition.”
When I do not respond to his implication, the boatman falls mercifully silent. I want to wriggle out from under his scrutiny.
I feel a deep wake rock the gondola from side to side, and then a dark form on the canal catches the corner my eye. I turn to see a large ferry making slow progress in the direction of the outlying islands. The back of the boat is so laden with passengers and cargo that it seems as if the ferry might take on water.
“Caxìn,” I hear the boatman’s curse, barely above a whisper. He squeezes the oar under his arm and quickly crosses himself.
Even though I have never seen one, I recognize the boat immediately. It is one of the ferries that the Sanità is using to transport people to and from the pesthouse islands. The boat is sluggish and low, heavy with plague victims and their earthly belongings. As the boat draws nearer, I can see some of their sunken, beaten faces peering out of the boat. As the boat passes, a young boy turns his ashen face toward me.
I feel as though my insides have been turned out. A wave of nausea overtakes me, and all I can think is that I do not want to vomit on the painter’s beautiful brocaded cushions. I stumble across the hull of the gondola and fall to my knees. I grip the varnished rim of the boat and hang my head over the green water, feeling the wave overtake me. The aroma of cabbage and rot fills my nostrils. A long string of spittle hangs from my lips and drips bubbly into the canal. Then it passes. I push myself from the edge of the boat and slump down into the floor. I feel the wooden curve of the keel against my back.
I feel the boatman’s eyes on me again, as if his gaze could sear a pattern on the skin along the back of my neck just as a mark has been etched into his face with a hot iron. I pull my shawl around me and cover my chest. I put my face in my hands, not wishing to encourage conversation.
Another wave of nausea overtakes me, and this time I am unable to stop it. Just in time, I grip the side of the gondola and vomit into the canal. I slump down against the side rail of the boat and wipe my mouth with the back of my hand. The boatman is wrinkling his nose. “Che cazzo?!” the boatman yells to me from his place at the stern the boat.
“The wake has gotten to me,” I say.
I hear the boatman make a chortle deep in his throat. I look up at him, holding up my hand to ward off the winter angle of the sun that casts him in silhouette against the sky, his stocky frame and the oar framed in the haze.
“You are not seasick, Maria Magdalena,” I hear the shadow say. I do not see his face in the glare but I imagine its sly look.
“You are with child.”
Mercifully, the gondola glides into the darkness of the painter’s cave-like boat slip. I cannot get away from the boatman fast enough, but he has placed his body in front of the stepping stool that I must use to climb out of the boat.
“Perhaps the painter and his wife should know of your situation.” The boatman’s gravelly voice echoes off the walls of the cavana. In the shadows, I study the stubble along his chin and try not to rest my gaze on his scar.
“You would not dare.”
His square teeth come into view. “I might... That is, unless I were offered something that would make it worth my while not to reveal the information.”
I stop to consider his words. “You are extorting me.”
The boatman makes a clucking noise. “Estorsione. A harsh word.”
“I do not know what else to call it.”
We stand in silence for a few moments, and I regard his brown eyes reflecting the wavering waters of the boat slip. The only sound is the lapping of the small waves against the stones.
“How much?” I say finally.
“Bene.” The boatman rubs his thick palms together. “I could be satisfied—for now—with one hundred silver soldi.”
I stand in the rocking boat. “One hundred soldi! Who has access to such sums?”
“You may not have money, Maria Magdalena, but I hear that you are a gilder’s daughter, no? L’oro. Now that is worth something.”
My mind races. “You want me to give you gold leaf so that you can sell it. And in exchange, you will say nothing about me to the painter and his wife.”
He nods, a smug smile on his face.
“And if I refuse?”
The boatman shrugs. “It is a simple transaction, signorina doratrice. You pay my fee. I seal my lips.” He brings his fingers to his lips and gestures as if he is turning a key, then his mouth spreads into a wide grin.