The Blind Contessa's New Machine (28 page)

Carolina settled back into the pillows in the bow. Water lapped at the low hull.

For the benefit of the other guests on the open river, Turri began a neighborly patter. “This boat looks like it was constructed by the teenage son of the Rossis’ gardener, based on Grandfather Rossi’s cloudy memories of Venice,” he said. “But I can’t blame the boat. It even seems a bit sheepish, like dogs do when girls dress them up as children.”

Carolina hadn’t been able to imagine this meeting, but she had expected something ungovernable: a thunderclap, a disaster. To her surprise, she felt just as she always had, speaking with him a thousand other times.

“I never saw Venice,” she said.

“It’s a terrible city,” Turri told her. He grunted with dissatisfaction at his own rowing. “A swamp, populated by the world’s most stubborn gypsies.”

Another stroke, and the boat glided forward.

“That’s not what I’ve heard,” said Carolina.

“They’re not all gypsies,” Turri amended. “Some of them are thieves.”

Now the musicians had agreed on a tune: a popular dance from the last season. It carried clearly over the water, along with laughter and curses from other boats. On the water, Carolina could no longer gauge her location by the unreliable sound. One moment another boat seemed like it might be close enough to touch, and the next moment the same voices were barely audible.

“Where are we?” Carolina asked.

“Comfortably midstream,” Turri said. “The real danger in a storm, as you’re no doubt aware, is not weathering the open seas, but breaking up on shore.”

Nearby, the broad blade of some oar struck water with a great splash, and then, encouraged by the satisfying squeals and shrieks, struck again.

“Carolina,” Turri said, his voice low and changed. “I haven’t slept for days.”

“They can hear us,” Carolina told him, trying to keep her own voice light.

“They’re not listening,” he insisted. “I can’t survive it. You name a place. We’ll leave the minute you say.”

“Stop it,” Carolina said.

Turri fell silent.

Carolina’s heart felt twice its size. Her bare arms tingled as if threatening to turn into wings.

“Is it dark?” she asked.

“There are torches here and there,” Turri said, with a hint of despair. “But they only make the shadows huge, and the water seem like hellfire.”

Carolina leaned forward, holding out her hands. When she found his, she pulled them to her face and kissed them.

“Turri,” Carolina’s father said curtly.

Her family’s servants had dragged all the second-best furniture through the forest to the water’s edge for the occasion. Carolina was curled into the corner of an uncomfortable couch, buried in thick quilts. Pietro sprawled beside her, one arm thrown loosely over her shoulders. Her mother and father flanked them in chairs on either side. The clearing was lit by torches on poles. One illuminated their small circle and warmed the back of Carolina’s neck.

“Turri!” Pietro exclaimed. “Where have you been hiding?”

“He’s been out in a half-swamped boat, trying to throw me overboard,” Sophia said. “But he’d forgotten I can swim.”

Pietro chuckled.

“You could hardly drown in this pond,” Carolina’s mother said. “A child could stand in the deepest part.”

“It is nine feet deep now,” Carolina’s father said in defense of his creation. “Every year, the river carries away more silt. I dredge it each spring, when the ice melts.”

“That’s a respectable depth for any pond,” Turri said.

“The first year, I had them begin digging even before spring,” Carolina’s father said, encouraged. “They were cutting up frozen sod while the snow was still falling. I made the men wash in the greenhouse each night, so my wife wouldn’t catch on.”

“But I knew,” Carolina said.

“You did?” her father asked, surprised.

“I followed you,” Carolina said. “And then I knew my way back.”

“Carolina,” Sophia said, “you must let me borrow my husband’s machine. Everyone talks about it, but I have never seen it.”

“Neither have I,” Carolina said.

Turri laughed, then lapsed into the general silence. On the water, the musicians began to play a Spanish dance.

“It’s such a strange present,” Carolina’s mother said. “What made you think of it?”

“You might as well ask him why he made a flying balloon out of my bridal linens,” Sophia said.

“Did that work?” Pietro said. “I have always wanted to go up in a flying balloon.”

“She wouldn’t set foot in it,” Turri said. “I sent Antonio up this summer.”

“What did he see?” Pietro asked.

“He won’t tell me,” said Turri.

“Well, let him answer my question,” Carolina’s mother said. “Why a machine for writing?”

“Why do we think of anything?” Turri asked her.

“Yes, but a writing machine,” Carolina’s mother insisted. “You’d think you’d have made a device so she could see.”

“I am a scientist,” said Turri. “Not a saint.”

“Here come the musicians,” Pietro said. He leaned in to kiss Carolina, then stood. “I’m going to go and guard them from our friends.”

The music had ended, and the raucous voices of the guests now seemed strange and out of place under the night sky. Peals of glee faded to low laughter, and the men’s shouts died down to drunken mumbling, as if everyone had grown afraid of embarrassing themselves in front of the disapproving stars.

After Pietro had gone, Carolina pulled the quilt close around her shoulders, stood, and walked the few steps to the water’s edge.

“I wouldn’t do it,” Turri said. “Real drowned girls are not as pretty as the ones they paint in pictures.”

“How would you do it, then?” Carolina asked.

“I could put you in the balloon and cut the rope,” he said. “You might get lost in space, or you might wind up on the moon.”

“Did the party look nice?” she asked.

“You should have seen it,” he said. “Pietro fitted all the boats with sails made from your servants’ petticoats: turquoise, violet, green, and gold. Then he had lanterns hung from them, so the lake looked like it was filled with fireflies trying to escape from bags of colored paper. The musicians played on a floating dock inside a glowing red tent.”

“He thinks of everything,” Carolina said.

“He does,” Turri said.

“There he is!” Sophia’s voice rang out from farther down the bank.

Turri took Carolina’s hand and kissed it, as tradition dictated. His lips on her skin were achingly familiar.

“Say the word, Carolina,” he said. “Tell me when.”

Carolina waited for almost an hour after Pietro returned her to her room that night. When she was certain that the house around her slept, she crept down the front stairs and through the front hall. In the dining room, she found one of the candelabras, followed the line of its stem up to the curve of its limbs, then fingered the gilt leaves that clustered at the base of each taper. She dropped her hand to the linen cloth that ran the length of the buffet and traced the vines between its embroidered pears and grapes.

She passed into the sitting room, where she wandered among the scattered furniture, revisited favorite figurines, felt the brocade curtains that flanked the front windows. She crossed the hall to the conservatory, trailed her hand along the length of the divan, and touched the keys of a song she half remembered on the piano without actually striking them. She even walked boldly back down the hall to the dining room, where she opened the door to the cellar and took in several breaths of the stale air before she closed it again.

From time to time, she gave herself away deliberately, with a heavy footfall or the clatter of a china figure on the hard surface of some table. Each time she stopped to listen, but she never caught the sound of even a single footstep.

“That one was so sad,” Pietro said, the following afternoon. Uncharacteristically, he had joined Carolina in the music room when he heard the old man playing. “Don’t you have something more lively?”

In response, the old musician launched into a furious composition that raced from the top of his cello’s range to the bottom, where it turned and skipped lightly back up the chords to a great height. It hung there for a moment, as if pausing to take in everything it could see from that vantage, then found a narrow path between the high rocks, and wandered thoughtfully along it.

“I’m not sure that’s what I meant,” Pietro muttered, shifting in discomfort on the divan beside Carolina. She had been curled up in the sweep of the divan’s single wing before he came in, so all his bulk was balanced awkwardly on the tail of the couch, where her feet were meant to drape. At that point, the back of the couch dropped away, leaving him nothing to rest against.

“He doesn’t like it when you call the music sad,” Carolina whispered.

When the song drew to a close, Pietro rose, applauding loudly. “Bravo! Bravo!” he said. “Beautiful! I think we are done for this afternoon. Thank you!”

Carolina sat up, frowned, and waited for the sound of Pietro’s footsteps to leave the room so that she could tell the old man to continue. But Pietro remained rooted beside the divan. After a moment, the old man’s chair slid along the wood. His instrument thumped hollowly as he began to pack away his things.

“But he only played two songs,” Carolina protested. “I listen for hours.”

Pietro didn’t answer.

Fear pricked the back of Carolina’s neck. She folded her hands in her lap.

The old man swept his music from the stand. His bow clattered in the lid of the case. The fasteners snapped shut. Then he began to turn it on its end.

“Here, let me—” Pietro began, alarmed. Then: “Well, look at that!” He laughed. “I wouldn’t have known you had that in you, old man!”

“Good afternoon to you both,” the old musician said, and rolled his instrument from the room.

Pietro reclaimed his awkward seat at the foot of the divan and took Carolina’s hand. He didn’t speak.