The Blind Contessa's New Machine (18 page)

When Liza returned, Carolina was already seated at the small writing desk on which Pietro’s mother had once copied out the poems and composed the sentences of her own incomplete education. The desk sat at the window between the two wing chairs Liza and Carolina sat in to read.

Without ceremony, Liza deposited the objects on the thick paper mat that protected the fine wood. Something rolled: the pen. Carolina caught it before Liza did.

“The flame?” Carolina asked.

“I put it at the back,” Liza said. “Reach out your hand.”

Her palm flat, her fingers spread on the surface of the desk, Carolina investigated until she discovered the cold metal plate with its curled handle, the stalk of the candle securely fastened in the center. Liza had placed it at the far edge of the desk, just inches from the window. If it had been night, the light would have been evident for miles.

“You may close the door when you go,” Carolina said.

As the door thudded shut, Carolina covered her collection of tools with both hands. She laid the stick of wax at the top of the mat, parallel with the line of the desk, like a dessert fork laid lengthwise above a dinner plate. She set the small heavy seal just above it. The glass bottle of ink she placed to her right, beside the pen. She set the paper to her left, then laid a single sheet down in front of her to write on. She lifted the glass stopper from the inkwell. In order not to lose track of it, she put the stopper in the glass trumpet that sprouted from the side of the well to hold the pen between thoughts so that the inked nib didn’t stain the page. By this time, she no longer remembered the exact location of the paper. To remind herself, she found the top border of the page with her index fingers and ran them lightly out to the corners and down the sides of the sheet. Then she picked up the pen and dipped it in the ink.

As she raised the pen to write, a heavy drop fell on the desk. Carolina moved to set the pen back in the glass, but the stopper was in its place. Instead, she set the nib on the cusp of the inkwell just above the deep pool of ink, the length of the pen jutting up. Now she could only guess where the drop had fallen. She walked the fingers of one hand like a spider over the desk until her thumb found a small puddle. With her other hand, she pulled a handkerchief from her bodice and wiped the drop away. Then she reached for the pen again, but her motion was imprecise. The pen dropped into the well, submerging the entire nib in ink. Carolina retrieved it. Then, to prevent further spills, she carefully dragged the inkwell across the desk so the small bottle rested at the edge of the unwritten letter.

All morning Carolina’s heart had been clogged with phrases and thoughts, incomplete confessions, pleas for help. She had begun a hundred sentences only to see them break apart in a flood of feelings her young mind could barely distinguish from one another: tenderness or desire, rage or fear, gratitude and love. But in her struggle with the pen and paper, all of that had gone. Hot with shame, she only wrote, in letters that she knew must seem ill-formed and childish, “
Your Carolina
.”

Slightly dizzy from the smell of the ink, she waited for the letter to dry. Then she folded the paper into thirds and picked up the stub of sealing wax. With one hand, she grasped the root of the candle. With the other, she pressed the burnt wick of the sealing wax against the candle’s smooth curve. Using the candle as a guide, she lifted the wax until one wick met the other and the sealing wax flamed up with a small hiss and a tiny gust of wind.

She fumbled again for the lifted flap of the letter, found it, and pressed it flat. Then she tilted the burning wax to seal it.

No drops fell.

Carolina turned the sealing stick upright and counted again, waiting for the dark wax to melt and pool below the flame. A moment later, searing heat splashed over her knuckles. With a short cry, she dropped the stub and began to blow frantically to snuff out the invisible flame. Moments later, her fingers found the stick again, the wick still hot, but unlit. Flecks of wax covered the desk and dotted the face of her letter.

Stubbornly, Carolina repeated her procedure, lit the wax, and held it over the raw edge of the paper. This time a stream of hot sealant poured evenly into place. Carolina blew out the second flame and laid the stub down. Then she pressed her own finger into the warm pool to seal the letter.

Her knuckles still burned. She stood, leaving the mess of ink and wax, and crossed the room to lay the letter on the table beside her bed. Then she rang for Liza.

Liza laughed. “It looks like you killed a cat,” she said. “A cat with ink for blood.”

“You may take it all away,” Carolina said. “Scrape the wax and bring me another mat. And I’ll want one of the boys from the stables.”

“You’re going riding?” Liza asked.

When the boy arrived, Carolina sat on the edge of her bed, her burnt hand submerged in the pitcher of water from her night table. In the other, she held the letter.

The boy stopped at the door and indulged in a long moment of silence, to observe her, to collect his thoughts, or perhaps because he was young enough to believe he could not be heard until he spoke.

“Giovanni,” he finally announced, with the frighteningly perfect mimicry of a child aping a man. From the timbre of his voice, the boy could not be much older than ten or eleven, but he spoke like a commander of numberless forces.

“Giovanni,” Carolina repeated. “Thank you for coming. Do you know the Turri house? Up the hill, on the way to town?”

“I’m not afraid of lions,” the boy averred. “Or dogs.”

Carolina extended the letter to him, which made him feel the need for some gallantry. “You look very pretty this morning,” he told her.

“How fast do you think you can run there?” she asked.

Because she kept her hands hidden below the tablecloth, Pietro did not notice them until dessert. When he did, he laughed.

“You look like you have been extracting the ink from a squid,” he said. “You know, we have girls who can do that for you.”

He took her hand up to examine it. The heat of the fire still throbbed in her fingers, as it had all day.

“What’s this?” Pietro said, alarm darkening his voice. “Have you cut yourself?”

“It’s not a cut,” Carolina said, reclaiming her hand. “It’s a burn.”

Silver clinked on china.

She waited for another barb or an outburst, but instead he just lifted her hand and kissed it, finger by finger.

“It is a fish shaped like a star, with five eyes like blue diamonds,” Liza embellished. Over weeks of long afternoons, she had begun to understand that it was her lies, not her powers of observation, that were in demand when Carolina asked her to read. Whether out of distaste for other work or the joy of creation, she had begun to invent with abandon. Today she worked from a book containing specimens of the ocean’s watery treasures.

“It is a silver tree that bends with the currents and drops fruit on the bottom of the sea.”

“The fruit was red, wasn’t it?” Carolina said, as if she remembered.

“No,” Liza said, with an author’s jealousy. “Purple like a plum, with silver on it, like breath on a glass.”

“I thought there was a monster next,” Carolina said.

“It is a monster,” Liza relented. “It has two faces, one like a man, and one like a horse, with the body of a fish.” This was elaborate, even for her, and presented as a kind of gift. Liza continued: “There is a bridle in its mouth, and a saddle on its back.”

“Who do you think rides it?” Carolina asked.

Liza had not considered this implication of her invention. “It doesn’t say,” she said.

“There are no footprints leading away, in the sand at the bottom?” Carolina pressed.

Liza went silent, then decided to solve this new problem by eliminating its source. “You can’t see the bottom,” she said. “There is nothing but green water, until it goes black in the distance.”

Footsteps approached the door of Carolina’s room and stopped just beyond the threshold.

“Who is that?” Carolina asked sharply.

Liza let the pages of the book slap together and stood. “It’s probably Giovanni,” she said. “He’s afraid to knock.”

“Open the door,” Carolina ordered.

Liza rose and crossed the room obediently. The door swung open. “Giovanni,” Liza said. “It’s not nice to stand outside a door.”

“I was thinking,” he said defensively.

“You can do that in the yard,” Liza said.

“There is a man in the conservatory to see you,” Giovanni told Carolina, and fled. His steps clattered down the stairs.

“He thinks he’s in love with you,” Liza said. “He tells all the other boys how pretty you are, and if they agree, he fights them.”

“Thank you,” Carolina said. “You may go.”

A few steps from the bottom of the stairs, Carolina stopped. She knew without a doubt that it was Turri who waited for her, and she had come this far with the eagerness of a child about to reach home. But now her mind rang with a warning, as if on the last step she had stumbled into the world of spirits and overheard their gossip. She couldn’t understand the words, but their meaning was clear: if she continued down the stairs, everything would change as completely as it had when her sight left her. For a moment, the premonition kept her in place. Then the cares of the world swept in with their compelling arguments. She was standing like a fool in the middle of the staircase; there was a visitor waiting. Quickly, she descended the last steps and went into the conservatory.

Silence greeted her. She listened for a breath or a movement, but caught nothing. Uncertain, her fingers closed on the folds of her dress. Turri would never have made her wait so long.

“Who is it?” she demanded.

In answer, a long, low note echoed from the belly of a cello somewhere near the piano. As it faded, a man laughed.

“You don’t know me,” he said. “But maybe you have heard me play. Your husband took my card at the Rossi party and asked me to come some afternoons, in case you might like music.”