In the Company of the Courtesan (5 page)

“Where is she?”

He shrugged.

I spat into his face and went up the stairs like a dog, for I can move more quickly that way when I am tired.

I still say we were blessed compared with many. If the city had survived the onslaught, ours would have been one of the many houses to throw a great celebration. Not least because Fiammetta Bianchini was due to celebrate her twenty-first birthday. She was now in her prime. In the six years since her mother had brought her as a virgin to Rome, she had slept with a generous list of the city's richest and best-educated men. And she had learned things from them that would surely aid her now. For while a wife is her husband's possession and must know and cleave to only one man, and a common whore belongs to and is used by everyone, my mistress had been lucky, for she had been able to choose some of her suitors and in that way had kept something of herself. This, mixed with her wit, training, and palpable beauty, had given her a certain confidence in matters of the flesh that is denied to most women. So now, if fortune and circumstances moved against her, surely the talents of her profession would help her to survive the ordeal. Or that was how I comforted myself as I reached the landing.

From behind the door, I could hear murmuring, almost like the rhythm of a chant. I turned the handle, expecting it to be locked. Instead it opened.

My lady was kneeling by the bed in her slip, her head down and covered so that I could not see her face, a Bible in front of her with pages torn out and blood splattered across them. Next to her stood a rake-thin woman with a face like pig's hide, her lips moving in constant prayer, while behind, another one, much bigger, had her fist around a pair of cook's carving scissors. Lutheran harpies—as much at home with the knife as with the word of God. They turned as I entered, and in the moment of mutual shock between us I saw the floor ankle deep in ropes of golden hair.

The fat woman with the blades moved toward me, yelling. I slammed the door and skidded around her. My lady cried out, the shawl falling off her head. I saw her face streaked with blood, her scalp like the stubble of a cornfield, scarred black in places where the fire had eaten into the roots. Her hair, that great river of beauty and wealth, was all gone.

“Oh, no! Please! You must not hurt him,” she cried, waving her arms around like a woman demented. “This is Bucino, of whom I spoke: the sweet, sad Bucino, whose body carries a terrible stigma but whose mind has always been simple and would gain such comfort from God's love.”

The woman halted for a second, staring at me. I grinned at her, pulling my lips away from my teeth and jabbering slightly, and she took a step back, transfixed by my hideousness.

“Oh, Bucino, come kneel with us and listen to what I have to say.” My lady reached out her hands to me, and now her voice had changed and she spoke slowly and carefully, as if to a half-wit. “I have been in thrall to the whore of Babylon, but these good women have shown me the way of the true Christ. Our riches, our clothes, our hidden wealth, all are given to God. So also is my soul. I have been taken from the evil of my profession to be born again through God's infinite mercy. To which end I have swallowed every last jewel of my pride. And when you have done the same, we may pray together, and then, with Christ's great grace, we may commence our journey to a better life.”

I clasped my hands first to my jerkin, then to my mouth, and, working up as much saliva as I could, swallowed the rest of the rubies and emeralds as I sank to my knees, half-choking and repeating the name of the Lord and thanking him for our salvation.

 

So it was, that same night, when the dark was at its thickest and our Protestant victors were sleeping the sleep of the just and the well-stuffed on goose-feather mattresses, that we, the hypocrites and the damned, slipped out from the stable where we had been quartered with what was left of the pigs. With our guts grinding stones, we moved silently through the wreckage of Rome until at last we reached the breached wall at San Spirito, where the frenzy of that first attack had left gaping holes in the masonry, too many to police in the darkness.

Where they swarmed in, we now crept out, a deformity and a shaved whore, bowed in defeat. We walked all through the night, and as the darkness bled away into dawn, we found ourselves merging into a slow train of refugees, some already destitute, others carrying whatever was left of their lives on their backs. But their good fortune was short-lived, for with first light the vultures came wheeling in: stragglers from the army who had yet to make it into the city and instead were taking booty where they could. Had my lady been raped but left with her hair and her looks, I swear she would have found herself on her back soon enough again and I, no doubt, beside her to be used as bayonet practice. As it was, her bloodied head and the perfumes of the pigpen kept them at safe distance. We had nothing worth stealing anyway, save for a small volume of Petrarch. Like good Christians, we carried all our riches on the inside.

We stayed pure for as long as we could (those who don't eat don't shit for longer; that was the sum total of the wisdom I gained during these momentous days), and then on the third evening, when we could wait no longer, we broke off from the road into the forest and found ourselves a stream beside which we could squat until the loosing of our bowels made us, if not wealthy, at least solvent again. And while it was little enough triumph given all that we had lost, it was better than death, and we kept each other's spirits high on its sweetness. That night we feasted on berries and fresh spring water—upstream from our ablutions—and counted our blessings, which amounted to twelve fat pearls, five emeralds, and six rubies, the largest of which my lady had had to smear with her face oil to get down her gullet. My God, how must it have been, choking down one's future as the harpies hammered on the door? It was a throatful to be proud of, and I told her so as we sat huddled together in the gloom, trying to keep the forest sounds benign in our city dwellers' imaginations.

“Indeed it was. A much more valiant act than you swallowing your paltry emeralds. And”—she stopped me before I could answer—“I want no Bucino-style jokes on how well trained I am in such things either.”

And while it was not that funny, I was so bone-weary, so worn down by trying not to show my fear, that once I started laughing, I couldn't stop. Once it had bitten me, it jumped like a flea onto her, so that despite our constant shushing of each other, we were soon doubled over and helpless with it, as if by our mirth we could mock Fate and ensure our survival.

When it was over, we lay back against the trees and stared into space, exhausted by our commitment to being alive.

“So,” she said at last. “What happens now, Bucino?”

What happens now? “Well, you would make a ravishing enough nun for a while,” I said. “Though they might question the madness of your ardor when they see how violently you shaved your own head.” But despite our earlier laughter, it was not a thing to joke of, and I felt a shudder go through her. In the gloom it was hard to see her face, though the terror in her eye was sharp enough and the blood gash on her forehead vivid against her white skin. I took a breath. “Or we could bide our time and lick our wounds, and once you are healed we could start over again. The city won't be occupied forever, and there will always be men with taste who will want what you have to offer.”

“Not in Rome,” she said, her voice fierce with anger as much as fear. “I won't go back there. Not ever. Not for anything.”

Which, when I considered it, was just as well, since most men, especially those with something to forget, like their women sweet as spring lambs, and by the time there would be anything worth going back to, we would both have grown too old to reap its rewards. Not Rome then.

I shrugged, keeping my voice light. “So where?”

We both knew the answer, of course. With war wiping its bloody fingers all over the land, there was only one place to go. To a city of wealth and stability ruled by men who had the money and manners to pay for what soldiers take at the end of bayonets. An independent state with an eye for beauty and a talent for trade, where clever exiles with enough imagination could make their fortunes. There are some who think it the greatest place on earth, the most prosperous and the most peaceful. Except, for all the tales of magic and wonder, I had never wanted to go there.

But this was not my choice. In these last days, she had risked and lost more than I ever had, and she deserved, if that was what she needed, to think of going home.

“It will be all right, Bucino,” she said quietly. “I know your fear, but if we can get ourselves there, I believe we could make it work. We'll be partners now, you and I; split everything, expenses and profit, take care of each other. Together, I swear, we can do it.”

I stared at her. My very bones ached from running. My stomach was shriveled and starved. I wanted to sleep in a bed again, to eat pig rather than smell like it, to spend time again with men who had brains as well as bloodlust and who measured wealth by more than raw booty. But more than all of that, I didn't want to walk the world alone anymore. Because it had been a much warmer place since we had found each other.

“All right,” I said. “Just so long as I don't get my feet wet.”

She smiled and slipped her hand over mine. “Don't worry. I will not let the water consume you.”

They arrived at night by rowing boat from the mainland.

On the jetty at Mestre, the squat, misshapen one began the bargaining. It was clear from the state of their clothes and meager baggage that the pair had traveled far, and his thick Roman accent, along with his insistence on traveling under cover of darkness to avoid the plague patrols, gave the boatman an excuse to charge them triple what the journey was worth. At which point the woman intervened. She was tall and thin, wrapped up like a Turk so that one could see nothing of her face, but she spoke the dialect so perfectly and haggled so fiercely that the boatman became almost the loser, agreeing to be paid only once he had delivered them to the exact house in the city.

The water was black and choppy under thick cloud. Almost as soon as they had left the land, the dark enveloped them, the only sound the slapping of the waves against the wood, so that it felt for a while as if they were heading into open sea and that this city in the water that people spoke of with such awe was simply an idea, a fantasy built out of our need for miracles. But just as the blackness was at its most complete, it was broken by a glow of flickering lights on the horizon ahead, like the iridescence of mermaid hair caught by moonlight on the water's surface. The boatman pulled with strong, even strokes, and the lights grew and expanded until eventually the first buildings took shape, hovering on the water like lines of pale tombstones. A passageway of colored wooden markers came into view, guiding them from open sea into what looked like a widemouthed canal, where shacks and warehouses rose up on either side, their jetties crammed with stone and mounds of timber, thick barges lining the moorings. This canal curved lazily in upon itself for a few hundred yards, until it met a much broader band of water.

The boatman steered the craft to the left, and now the vista began to change. They passed dwellings and a church, its stern brick frontage stretching up into the sky, its forecourt flat and empty. Then, as a sly half-moon slipped out from the clouds, larger houses started to appear on either side of them, their inlaid and gilded façades seeming to shoot up directly out of water. The woman, who had taken the open crossing in her stride, as if it was a journey she might make every day, now sat transfixed. The misshapen one, by contrast, was clutching the side of the boat, his squat little body tense like that of an animal, his big head darting from side to side, as much afraid of what he might see as of what he might miss. The boatman, who had grown old watching other people's wonder, slackened his speed in the hope that the view might earn him a tip. The canal was wide and black here, like a great polished corridor in an even greater mansion. Despite the late hour, there were a few other boats abroad, particular in their appearance, sleek and thin, with small cabins at their centers and solitary figures standing in their sterns maneuvering by means of a single long oar so that they moved effortlessly through the dark water.

In the waxy, pale light, the buildings on either side grew grander, like ghost palaces, three or four stories tall, their entrances low, a few stone steps all that separated them from the slapping sea. In some, the great doors stood open onto cavernous halls with rows of the slim-hipped boats tied up outside, their silvery prows glinting under an occasional lamp. The woman was animated now, her eyes drawn to the upper stories, where, under rows of pointed-arched windows, their fretted stone shone like lacework in the moonlight. Many of them were dark, for the night was at its deepest now, but in a few, the sparkle of hanging chandeliers, the numbers of candles bearing witness to extraordinary wealth, lit large, echoing spaces so that you could make out silhouettes of moving figures and the singsong of voices tossed and swallowed by the water.

Every fifty or hundred yards there came a gap in the houses and the stone gave way to other waterways, narrow as fingers and black as Hell, flowing into the main one. After they had been traveling for perhaps twenty minutes, the woman motioned to the boatman and he changed his stroke, turning the craft in to one of these channels. The world became dark again, the sides of the houses shooting up like canyon walls, obscuring the moonlight. Their progress became sluggish. A little way farther on, a stone pavement opened up, running alongside the water. The air was muggier here, the day's heat still clinging to the stone, and there were smells now: rot and the sharp tang of urine, the perfumes of poverty. Even the sound was different, the slip-slap of the water more hollow, almost angry, as it bounced and echoed off the narrow walls. They passed under bridges low enough to run their hands along the undersides. The boatman had to work harder, his eyes like a cat's glinting into the darkness ahead. These alleyways of water merged into one another at different angles, in some cases so suddenly that he had to bring the boat to a virtual stop before he turned, and as he did so he would cry out to warn anyone who might be heading toward him on the other side. Or someone might call first out of the darkness, a voice twisting and falling in the night. The etiquette of the water seemed to demand that whoever called first would be the one to move, while the other boat waited. Some had candles in glass jars on deck so they appeared out of the darkness like dancing fireflies, but there were others that remained black, the thick sigh of the water the only evidence of their passing.

They rowed slowly through this maze until they hit a broader canal, where the houses grew wealthier again. Ahead, one of the sleek, black boats glided toward them, lit up this time by a hanging red lamp. The woman was instantly alert, moving to the end of the boat to get a better view. The figure in the stern ahead seemed to merge into the dark, his skin and his costume the same hue as the night, but the cabin was more colorful, decorated with gold curtains and tassels, and as the two vessels moved closer, it was possible to catch a glimpse of a young woman in fine clothes, her rising breasts and neck the color of moonlight, and a shadow of a man next to her, his fingers in her hair. As the two boats slid by each other, a ringed hand slipped out and pulled the curtain across to hide them from view, and in the still night air, the movement sent a rush of lavender and musk across the water. In the rowing boat, the woman closed her eyes, her head tilted up like a hunter's toward the scent, and long after the boats had passed each other, she stayed that way, lost in the moment, breathing deeply. Across the length of the boat, the dwarf watched her closely.

The silence was broken by the boatman's voice. “How far?” he muttered, his arms aching at the prospect of the journey back. “You said it was in Cannaregio.”

“We are nearly there,” she said; then almost to herself, “It has been a long time.” A few moments later, she motioned him into a smaller stretch of water. The channel led to a dead end, where, to one side, a three-story house loomed up in front of them, a rickety wooden bridge close by. “Here. Here. We are here.” And her voice was excited now. “You can bring the boat in to the steps. The mooring is to the left on the side.”

He pulled up and secured the boat. The building looked forbidding, plasterwork peeling, broken shutters closed. The tide had risen during the journey, and the water was slurping over the top step. He dumped their bags on the wet stones and demanded his money roughly, and though the dwarf tried to persuade him to wait until the doors were open, he would have none of it, and by the time they started banging, he had already disappeared into the slick dark.

The sound of their fists on the wood jumped into the air around. “Open up,” she called. “It is Fiammetta come home. Open the doors, Mother.”

They waited. She called again. This time a light flickered on the first floor and a face appeared at the window.

“Meragosa?”

A woman's voice grunted.

“Open the door. It's me.” Above, the figure seemed to hesitate, then pulled the shutter closed, and they heard movements as someone came down the stairs. Eventually the great wooden door swung open and an old woman was revealed, thick as a cart and wheezing with the effort, a single shaded candle in her hand.

“Meragosa!” The woman, subdued for so long, was excited.

“It's me, Fiammetta.”

“Fi-Fiammetta. Maria Madonna! I didn't recognize you. What happened to you? I thought…well…We heard about Rome…. Everyone's talking about it…. I thought you were dead.”

“We might as well be, for the shape of us. For God's sake, help us in.”

The woman shifted a little, but not quite enough to make way.

“Where is my mother? Is she asleep?”

Meragosa gave a small moaning noise, as if someone had struck her. “Your mother…I…God help us, I thought you knew.”

“Knew what?”

“Your mother…is dead.”

“What? When? How? How could I know?”

“Half a year ago. We…I sent a message to you. In Rome.”

In the gloom it was impossible now to see either of the women's eyes.

“A message. And what did it say?”

The answer was almost a mumble again. “Only that…well, that she had passed away.”

There was a small silence. The younger woman dropped her eyes, and for a moment she seemed to hesitate, as if she did not know quite how to feel. The dwarf moved closer to her, his eyes fixed on her face. She took a breath. “In which case, Meragosa, it would seem you are now living in my house.”

“No…I mean…” The old woman stammered. “Your mother…she fell sick suddenly, and on her deathbed she told me I could stay on…for all that I've done for her.”

“Oh,
carina.
” Her voice was sleeker now, like a long caress on cat's fur. “All these years of practice and you still lie as badly as an old whore. The rent on this house is paid for out of my loins, and we have come to take possession of it. Bucino, take our bags inside. Our room is on the first floor above the entrance—”

“No.” The woman's bulk blocked the way. “You can't stay. I—I've taken lodgers. I—I needed the money—to keep the place going.”

“Then they can sleep on the landing till they leave in the morning. Bucino.”

The dwarf moved quickly by the old woman's legs, and she screamed as he brushed past her, a word spitting from her lips.

“What did you call him? A water rat? You should be careful, Meragosa. From where I stand, you're the only vermin I see in this house.”

There was a silence. Neither of them moved. Then, suddenly, the old woman gave ground, growling and standing aside to let her in.

And so the young woman and the dwarf walked into the darkness, the water lapping greedily at the steps behind them.