Chapter 41

For months, I have carried a secret child in my womb. And now, as my contractions come in waves, I am surrounded by an unlikely audience. In addition to the painter’s wife and children, and the man my father intended for me to marry and his own father, there is also the journeyman and a half-dozen neighbor men who have answered the call for help. While a few of the men work together to hoist the boat and tie it off to a mooring, another man runs for more help to pull the boat from the water. The men try to avert their gaze, but they cannot tear their eyes away from me, the painter’s apprentice making her childbed in the corner of the boathouse.

“Antonella!” the painter’s wife screech echoes through the boathouse. “Where is that woman when you need her?”

But of course, Antonella is nowhere to be seen.

“Send for the midwife!” the painter’s wife says to a neighbor woman whose husband has called out to her from across the canal.

“No!” I say. “I have already caused you too much trouble, signora. Please. I must go to the convent of the Vergini.”

“Maria,” says the painter’s wife. “Come inside and lie down. We will have the midwife attend to you.”

Another wave of contractions wracks my body. I lean over and press my hands to the stone wall. From the corner of my eye, I see the pained look on Pascal Grissoni’s face, and I cannot begin to imagine what is going through his mind.

“Antonella!” the painter’s wife screeches again.

“She is not here, signora. Please, I beg you,” I say more loudly, “take me to Santa Maria delle Vergini. My aunt will help me.”

“Master Grissoni,” says the painter’s wife. “Call for a gondola from the traghetto.” The painter’s wife shoos him out of the boat slip with her hand. The neighbor men have succeeded in tying off the boat to an iron ring in the wall.

“Signora,” says Pascal Grissoni’s father. “You may take our gondola. Our own boatman will be of service.” He gestures to his son to fetch the gondola, and Pascal Grissoni scrambles out of the boathouse. I imagine that he is relieved for an excuse to leave this strange scene.

The crisis averted with the boat, the painter’s wife now turns her attention to me. The poor journeyman paces back and forth, bewildered about what to do or how to help.

“Sit, Maria,” the painter’s wife drags a small wooden stool over and gestures for me, but my back aches and I feel like standing and leaning with my palms against the wall. I watch droplets of water drip down the stones. The painter’s wife pats the small of my back where it hurts the most.

“Let us get her to the boat,” the elder Grissoni says.

“Oh!” A contraction comes, and I cannot hold back my sobs this time. I slump down onto the floor as it wracks my body. The painter’s wife does her best to kneel down on the floor beside me.

“Do you think she will make it all the way to the convent?” the painter’s journeyman chews his nails, his brow wrinkled. “What if the baby comes in the boat?”

“The boat is ready, signora,” one of the neighbors calls.

“Help her up, please!” the painter’s wife calls. The journeyman springs into action, grasping my forearm with both of his hands.

“She is young and it is her first child,” says the painter’s wife, putting her arm behind my back and offering her other hand to help me stand. “It will take some time.”

“No, signora, please,” says the journeyman. “Do not strain yourself. Allow me.”

Pascal Grissoni has reappeared, and he and his elegant, grey-haired father stand on either side of me. They lift my arms.

“I expect it will be many hours before the child is born,” says the neighbor woman. “Better that she is there among the women in the convent than here with you. They will know better what to do and can take care of them better than we can.”

“What’s wrong with the lady, mamma?” little Gianluca asks.

“She is in child labor, caro,” the painter’s wife says, and I hear the fear in her voice.

“She is going to have a baby?” he looks up at his mother with huge, innocent eyes.

“It appears so.”

I feel Pascal Grissoni’s arm under my own, but I dare not meet his eyes. I cannot imagine how the pain could possibly get worse than it is now, or that I will endure many hours like this. I focus on putting one foot in front of the other. The two men propel me carefully forward, step by step. I make it halfway across the boat slip when a contraction possesses my body as if a demon has taken it over. I bend over, gripping the painter’s wife’s hand and grimacing as they support my arms.

The painter’s baby starts to sob again.

Cristo santo,” whispers the painter’s wife.

“Don’t worry, signora,” says the journeyman. “I took care of my younger brothers and sisters. I will take care of the children while you take Signorina... Signora Maria to the convent,” he says.

“No,” says the painter’s wife. “Come with us. We will all go.”

“That’s it,” she says to me as the men help me hobble to the Grissoni’s fine gondola docked outside the painter’s house. “One foot in front of the other,” she says assuredly, but when she looks at me I see that she has gone white as a sheet. “Let us get her to that boat.”

I hardly feel that I can walk, but the two men propel me toward the canal-side door. I grip the doorjamb and look out to see the polished black prow and the gilded lanterns and dolphins decorating the front of the gondola. There are two boatmen, one at the fore deck and one at the aft. The young man at the foredeck wrinkles his brow when he catches sight of me hunched over, supported by the two men. He leaps onto the landing and quickly ties off the boat, then approaches me to offer his hand.

The painter’s journeyman takes Trevisan’s little son by the hand, and the two perch themselves on the foredeck near the boatman. I slowly lower myself into the gondola, hands all around me, and Trevisan’s wife helps me duck inside the dark passenger compartment, her hands at my back. I seat myself on a plush, silk-covered cushion and breathe a sigh of relief. The painter’s wife props her baby on her bulging abdomen. With her other hand, she fans my face with a piece of parchment that another passenger has discarded in the bottom of the boat. The contraction has passed, and I allow myself to exhale loudly.

“Maria, why on earth did you not tell us?” the painter’s wife says.

My mouth opens, but it takes a few moments. “I guess I could not find the words.”

“Who is the father?” Her voice is low, and she looks at me with trepidation.

“It is not your husband, if that’s what you were wondering.”

“I...” Her face goes blood-red and she turns away from me.

“I came to your house encumbered with child,” I say. “I just did not know it. It became clear when I did not have my menses. You could ask Antonella,” I say. “Well, could have...”

The painter’s wife looks momentarily relieved. She stares out into space, for a moment speechless. “Your father knew about this?” she asks finally.

I shake my head. “Of course not. He would have killed me with his own hands. I did not know it myself until I had been in your house for a while.”

I hesitate, then realize that at this point I have nothing to lose in telling her the story.

“We had a battiloro working in our workshop. He... We... Well. The story is complicated. Of course my father wanted me to work with your husband and learn from him; that was sincere. But if you want to know the truth, signora, the main reason I came to Master Trevisan’s workshop is because my father was trying to separate me from the man I loved until he could make a plan for me to be married to someone else.”

Then her mouth makes a large circle, and for once, the painter’s wife is rendered speechless. She exhales audibly, and all I hear is the baby’s suckling noise. The little boy has appeared in the passenger compartment now. He presses his cheek to his mother’s side and sets his big eyes on me.

I wipe the sweat from my brow. I lie down and close my eyes. For a moment I almost drift into sleep, lulled by the rocking boat and the soothing sound of the canal water swirling alongside. I do not allow myself to think about what lies ahead.

When I open my eyes I look at the painter’s wife and say, “Grazie. I am very appreciative for everything you are doing for me.”

Senz’altro, do not be silly,” she says, fanning my face. I feel strands of hair stuck to my cheeks. The baby detaches herself from her mother’s breast and turns her face to look at me and smile. “At this point everything is upside down,” the painter’s wife sighs. “I will be in your shoes very shortly. We are almost there now. Not much longer.”

“Signora, your box,” I say, pushing my palms against the bench and raising myself to a sitting position. “The box with your dowry.”

The painter’s wife presses her face in her hands. She utters a deep sob, then turns the fan on her own face and waves it wildly in an attempt to pull herself together. “It was my entire fortune,” she says quietly. “That boatman...” She wags her head. “I told Benvoglio! I knew something like this was going to happen.”

“Signora, Antonella is the one who took your box,” I say.

Her mouth falls agape. “What?”

“Well, Antonella and the boatman. They planned it. They left together.”

Dio.” The word comes out as a breathy exhale as I see realization dawn across her face.

Another contraction begins to grip my abdomen, and I double over in pain.

“God, just let us get there without the baby being born in this fine boat,” I hear Trevisan’s journeyman say from the foredeck.

“That’s enough!” yells the painter’s wife from the passenger compartment.

I feel the gondola bump against the side of the quay where the convent lies, and at that moment, I feel another contraction grip my body. “Oh!” I cry out and feel a tear run down my cheek. “But your box, signora,” I say through gritted teeth.

“Please,” the painter’s wife says. “My box is my problem. You have other things to concern yourself with now.”

“But... It is not gone, signora. Your box is still in the studio. Look under my worktable. You will find it there.” I must pause to huff out several deep breaths. “The box the servants took...” Another huff. “It was a replica that I made with my own hands. It is empty. Not even gold. Practically worthless.”

I push another guttural sound through my teeth. The journeyman opens the curtains to the passenger compartment. He and the painter’s wife reach for me, hoisting me up under each arm. I struggle to push myself to a sitting and then to a standing position. Over the bow of the gondola, I see the massive stucco wall of the convent appear.

“Thanks be to God,” I say in a huff of air.

“Indeed.” The journeyman presses his narrow body behind me and leads me to the step stool at the side of the boat.

I reach for the rope tie on the quayside as a contraction grips my body. I hoist one leg up to the quay and pull myself up as my water breaks and splashes slimy and clear into the canal.