The Book of Human Skin (30 page)

In the midst of all the servants’ wailing, Minguillo’s quack waddled from his lodging on our first floor. He added his voice to those of the men, ‘It is for the best. I have diagnosed her myself. The Conte Fasan has arranged it all.’

At this, the household staff dissolved into tears and farewells and exhortations of gentleness to the San Servolite men. Dear Gianni pressed a coin from his own pocket into the hand of the taller man. But I am ashamed to say I almost hated Gianni in that moment when I should have been so grateful to him. The servants were too quick, I felt, to count me as one lost.

Under the pretext of a last embrace with Anna, I whispered, ‘There are a few papers in my room. Will you take them and hide them somewhere good? And tell no one?’

I wept silently all the way across the
bacino
. While we rocked and pulled through the inky water, I recalled the excited expression on Minguillo’s face at my bedchamber door earlier that evening. He must have been living this scene in happy anticipation. I felt his glad eyes from behind his own room’s curtains as the men carried me from our jetty to their boat.

In half an hour I was at San Servolo. By now I had realized that ardent protests would have made me seem yet more piteously demented, so I disembarked without a word or a whimper. I was escorted through a courtyard. We turned right into a stark corridor. One of many doors was nudged open by the knee of a nurse and a lamp lit inside a small, windowless cell with tall walls. I was laid into a trestle bed with a leather covering fastened all around. There was just a hole for my neck and head, which was laid gently on a pillow. That was how I passed my first few hours, blinking in the dark, my arms forcibly around myself, waiting for Minguillo’s next surprise.

I was thirsty, I begged them, in the early hours. They gave me a sponge to suck. It must have been dipped in something soporific because then sleep fell like a black crow over my eyes. The next thing I knew, the sparrows were chanting outside and a priest was sitting quietly by my bed. He had a face that would have appealed to Cecilia Cornaro: so many things going on between his thoughts and his skin.

He balanced on his lap a long thin ledger, like a book of accounts. Its length was about fourteen inches and its width about eight. It was spread open, and I could see neat paragraphs underlined, six or so on each page. The priest leafed through the book till he arrived at the pages marked ‘F’. There was a little space for me, bottom right, below the other madwomen of the tribes of ‘F’.

‘
Marcella Fasan
,’ he wrote.

I stirred to show him I was awake. He hastened to remove my leather covering, so I might sit up. He showed no disgust at the dampness of my nightdress, and reached out a hand to shake mine.

‘Padre Luigi Portalupi,’ he smiled. ‘I am pleased to meet you.’

He inscribed my notes so that I could see them, copying from the last night’s document headed by the stamp of the
Regno d’Italia
.

‘
Marcella Fasan, noblewoman, cripple, incontinent, conducted here by the staff of San Servolo, on May fifteenth, 1812, under the order of the police, being accused of a
Furore in utero,
with a consequent
ninfomania
that has led to a desire for immoral behaviour with a male person of citizen class
.’

He saw that I was reading what he wrote, and that it distressed me. ‘I do not judge you,’ and his voice was kind, ‘this is a place of understanding, not punishment.’

I pardoned the Padre that he did not at first comprehend that I was the victim of a travesty. This man had only the information with which Minguillo had furnished him. And I could see, from the steady pace and quiet certainty of his writing, that he had tranquilly absorbed Minguillo’s story in its entirety. Husbands he might doubt, if admitting inconvenient wives. But a brother – what reason could a brother have for wrongful committal of a sister?

Minguillo must have come over to the island well in advance to design my new fate. He would have seen to all the details. He would have acquired the crucial vocabulary. Then I remembered how I had seen Pinel’s book open by my brother’s bed the last time I went to his room to hide my diary.

An involuntary conspiracy had taken place. Luigi Portalupi was a good man, a decent man, who very unfortunately believed my brother, because the Padre himself had the gift of accepting unacceptable behaviour with understanding. So the priest’s compassion easily extended to me, a poor
ninfomaniaca
, with an alleged
furore in utero
, and a stated history
of
dissolutezza
. He would care for me even in that state. He had seen the worst human nature could conjure; he had looked after women damaged by love in every way, and now he accepted me as one of love’s victims.

And indeed, perhaps I was rightfully classed as such, given Santo’s love for my sister-in-law. How bitter I felt now at the charges against me – that I had lured a man into my bed! Santo had attended
my
bed solely for payment. All his desire had been for Amalia. And Minguillo had profited from it all, perhaps even setting his irresistible wife in Santo’s way as a snare.

Now Minguillo would expect me to rave against my confinement. He would perhaps have our gondola row him over sometimes, just for the joy of hearing from the Brothers how desperately I pleaded my case, and how strenuously I defended my sanity.

It occurred to me that anything I said now in ignorance might be used against me. The Padre in front of me seemed kind, yet who was I to judge? My instincts had recently been proved wanting. And even if he was truly kind, was Padre Portalupi powerful? Were they all as kind as he? Unlike Minguillo, I had no idea how things operated on San Servolo, whether the inmates were treated as involuntary criminals or half-witted unfortunates by all employed there. It would be necessary to observe, to learn and to calculate how to best survive here, before I committed myself to speech.

So, from that moment on, I became a mute.

I held out my hand, indicating that I would like to see the book in which he was writing. Without hesitation, Padre Portalupi held it up to my eyes. I scanned the other entries: women admitted for
frenosi pellagrosa, melanconia con stupore, monomania impulsiva, temperamento pazzesco, melanconia semplice, frenosi alcolica
.

These were the sisters with whom I would share my life now.

Some of the entries showed a date of release – days or months after their arrival on the island. ‘Returned to the family,
risanata
,’ I read, ‘made sane again.’

I pointed at one such entry, and smiled at Padre Portalupi. He smiled back. ‘Why do you not speak, Marcella? I don’t believe that you are mute.’

I shook my head, and pointed at some other entries on the page, some with crucifixes delicately drawn at the side.

‘What does that mean, the little cross, is that what you wish to know?’

I nodded.

‘That they died here.’

Gianni delle Boccole

I skulled oer secret with Anna to the island with a baskit of Marcella’s little things. A priest tookt the baskit oft me and promist to give it her, kind nuff. But when we askt to see her, he sayed it were forbid, for she could not be disturbt by contact with the life what had originly damidged her mind. The priest lookt oer his spectickles at me n Anna all reproofing, as if to say, ‘Do you want to make her madder with the sight of ye?’

Anna’s face were orrible red n swelled up with crying, and twas true that the prospecked of her wunt cheer a body. As for me, I was so stiff with rage that I couldn’t hardly sit back down in the boat, God with Horns On!

I called Minguillo a stack o swear-words out loud as we pulled way. Then some strong feelin made me look back at San Servolo. I bethought I saw a little white hand fluttering at a window. Yet then agin I wanted to see Marcella so much that I mite of made it grow in the frame o glass jist for me.

All the way back cross the lagune Anna told me dredful things what was wispered round Rialto bout San Servolo.They put women in a cold bath for one hour, six hours, twelve hours, depending on how mad they believed them women was. Under a wooden blanky that covered em to there necks so they could nowise move. Then they fizz-sicked em with bitter erbs and doused em with fifty more pail o cold water.

‘That,’ I sayed, feroshus grim, ‘will kill Marcella faster than a gun.’

Then Anna cried so much ye would of had to put a bucket in each corner o the boat to catch all the tears.

‘Couldn’t Doctor Santo do something to get her out of there?’ she sobbed.

‘Twould be a death sentence for im to come back to Venice,’ I risposted. ‘I daren’t een tell im where she is – he’ll only come a-rushin back like lightning, which is probly jist what Minguillo wants, to loor im here for his thugs to beat on and kill to death. Santo
must not know
, ye unnerstand, Anna?’

She nodded. I swore under my breath. Minguillo ud cheated me again, he were so very smart for all-of-a-suddenness. And een if I could of found it, twere too late for me to bring out the will now that Marcella were offishal deklared a lunatick. I seen the law book pages marked with slits of paper in Minguillo’s study – lunaticks can’t own nothin, for they do not have the riotous possessing o there own minds.

Niver mind that the poor girl were not out of her mind no ways. Minguillo had hisself a peace o paper what sayed she was. His peace o paper were worth more than the one I ud lossed.

I had one spick of hope. The artist Cecilia Cornaro were finely back in Venice.

‘Who are you?’ she askt none too friendly when I walkt in the open door to her studio. Trunks n boxes n a large white bathtub was tumbled all oer the floor. She was alredy at her eezle. She saw me looking and beared her teeth. But I tested my metal and twere not found wantin. I cut to the hunt and stated my busyness. She yipped like a dog and threw a paintbrush out the window like a spear.

‘The bastard!’ she shouted. ‘I’ll see to it. San Servolo! The bastard!’

Then come a stream o words ye would not say to a gipsy with his hand in yer back pocket. Her eyes was like spirals of green when ye turn a sprig o clover in yer fingers fast as ye can. Them spiralling eyes made me too frit to otter one more word. I bethought she would go for my juggler if I did.

Summing ud appened to this Cecilia Cornaro. Some man, they sayed, had broke her heart, and now she were on the warpath agin all men who broked hearts, leastwise that is what I heared. I were sorry for her troubles, yet I were happy if her broke heart could bring any kind o vigger to the helping of Marcella.

Minguillo Fasan

The following may prove prejudicial to the digestion of the Squeamish Reader. For, well, well, well, it turned out to be true. Piero had indeed been taking Marcella to the artist Cecilia Cornaro for painting lessons, that is, until all such activities were brought, ahem, to a halt.

What? How did I learn this? Because the witch-haired harridan herself finally presented at the Palazzo Espagnol, demanding to be told what I had done with my sister. She still had the grime of a journey around her collar.

Our scene is my study. She clamoured her way in there, and then fell silent. She stood looking at me the way a cat scrutinizes a piece of bad meat. She examined my face as if I were not behind it.That was when it fell upon me hard, that all my noble contemporaries had got their faces painted by this woman. But my cold-hearted father had never cared enough for my face to commission Cecilia Cornaro or any other artist to immortalize it. Instead, he had got a painting done of Riva, not long before her death, as it happened. A seven-year-old daughter painted – and the son ignored!

Cecilia Cornaro seemed to be thinking the same thing. She said quietly, ‘There are only two reasons why a man of quality does not have his only son painted. One is when he’s been cuckolded and his wife has foisted some other man’s issue upon him.The other is if that son shows himself unworthy to carry the family name to the next generation.’

She winked at me impudently, ‘I would opine that I have found my man in possibility number two.The face says it all.And the clothes scream it.’

My skin tightened and my foot started drumming on the floor. No one had spoken to me like that, not since my father died.This woman had been a friend of Piero Zen. Had Pieraccio told her something to my detriment? And, if so, was this woman a model of discretion? Did she not have the ear of every vain and flighty noble, who came to her for a portrait, and required the entertainment of artistic gossip to speed the long still hours?

While I still sat with my mouth open, she bustled on to the reason for her visit: ‘Now, get Marcella out of that madhouse! Why did you do a thing like that, you stupid boy? Did you really begrudge her the tiny amount she needs to exist out here in the living world?’

My mouth formed a reply but my lips opened and closed over it silently like a fish’s in the water. Cecilia Cornaro took advantage. ‘Go to it speedily and the San Servolites will restore your little heap of cash without too great a deduction for the inconvenience.’

Now she flashed a grin at me, as if the situation was resolved, ‘In all seriousness, write your letter this minute, and I will perfect it for you – and we’ll get her out before the surgeons open her up or freeze her to death in a bath.You can form your letters, can’t you? One can never be sure with these bad seeds in the old families. I’ll write it for you, even. Come now, set to it.You know you’ll sleep easier with an upright conscience tonight.’

This rangy scrag of a woman was telling me how to live and who I was! Standing over me like an impatient governess. Who was she to speak? A person tolerated in society only because of her family and a spurious talent to flatter with a paintbrush. Her lovers notched up on her belt. Married, noble, ignoble, what did she care? Easing old worlders in her cock-loft by the half-dozen a night.And now
she
had come here to tell me my fortune and that I must fetch my sister off San Servolo?