The next morning I lie awake wondering how I will meet Master Trevisan’s eyes, what I will say, how we will go on working together side by side now that he has crossed the chasm that turned out to be merely a hair’s breadth.
I have stared at the ceiling all night, thinking of what I have done to invite him, to lure him to follow me into the church. His breath at my neck.
Surely you must feel it, too.
It was just a small thing, really, but it has upset the balance, fundamentally changed it all. He realized his mistake immediately, pulling away and letting me run from him without following. I wonder now if he pulled me close enough to have felt the hardness of the bulge around my middle, or if he suspected. My aunt, after all, said it was plain as day.
It takes every bit of courage I can muster to make my way down the stairs and into the painter’s workshop. I know I am late; the birds have long fallen silent after their dawn concert. I will need to account for my tardiness.
But when I arrive in the workshop, Master Trevisan is not there.
Instead, the journeyman is pacing the studio, running his hand through his hair. “Bondì,” I say, but he only salutes me with a weak wave and continues his pacing. The air is thick and still. The journeyman walks nervously back and forth, as if searching for something but doing nothing productive.
“Master Trevisan is gone,” the journeyman says finally.
It takes me a moment to register what he has said. “Gone?”
He nods.
“What do you mean—gone?”
The journeyman shrugs. “It is odd. When I came down early this morning I found him packing his tools. Pulling individual brushes out of the jars and wrapping them in a satchel. He seemed in a great rush. He said that he was going away from the studio for a while.”
“Away? Where?”
“Mmm,” he nods, running his fingers through his hair. “Terra firma.” His cheeks look flushed. “He said that it has been nearly two years since he visited his family’s ancestral farms near Padua. Our work for the convent is now done and, well, someone there has promised him a new commission. He needs to go there to see it.”
“But his wife,” I say, gesturing toward the stairs. “She is about to be delivered of a child.”
He nods. “Yes. That. Well, Master Trevisan said that she birthed the other two without his assistance, and that she will be capable with this one, too. Antonella will help her, and once the labor has started it is in the midwife’s hands.” He throws up his hands as if to demonstrate. “That there is not much that men can do in these circumstances. I suppose he has a point. Anyway, it was strange. It felt kind of rushed. He has never left so quickly like that before.”
I feel my heart sink, knowing that the real reason he has left is because he cannot face me. I know nothing of his heart, but I have observed Master Trevisan enough to know that he is a shy, decent man and that for him to make himself vulnerable to me must have taken every bit of courage or a complete loss of self-control. His wife was already suspicious. Now I see that she has had every right to be.
“His trunk was already loaded in the gondola when I came downstairs. Boatman is ferrying him to Pellestrina right now. From there, he said, he will hire a coach to take him inland.”
“And what are we to do?” I ask.
“A fair question,” the journeyman says. “Master Trevisan placed the commissions in my hands for now, for he does not know how long he will be away. He asked me to tell you to keep practicing your trees. Perhaps you will work on your boxes.”
At that moment there is a knock on the canal-side door, and the journeyman stops his pacing to open it.
There in the doorway I see the portly silhouette of our gastaldo. He holds his hat in his hands and looks at me with a dire expression. Behind him, there is another man uniformed in the manner of those assigned by the Sanità to report the plague-affected in our neighborhood. The men say nothing, but stand there as dark sentinels in the morning light.
As soon as I see the look on the gastaldo’s face, my hands fly to my mouth. The gastaldo approaches me and looks at me with drooping eyes like those of a dog. Then he runs his palm over the top of his head and opens his mouth, pausing, as if trying to find the words. I feel my hands start to shake and everything before my eyes goes blurry. Before the gastaldo utters a word I have already fallen to my knees before him on the stone floor.