Dani,
We should see each other soon. We have not met since the openings!
For you, another instalment.
x, M.
Sárvár, December 15, 1601
At last, some respite, some gleam of intrigue in this drab little castle. It seems a long time has passed since Ursula finally died, yet for another month I must pretend to be sombre and in mourning. At least she is in the grave, though she manages to make me miserable still. But this week I have met with good fortune: I have made the acquaintance of Anna Darvulia. And she promises great things.
Helena Jo met her at the marketplace, and they entered into a discussion about where to find the best nettles, and then how best to keep a household’s laundry-women in line. Helena brought her back here, thinking I might like to add her to my entourage.
I have interviewed her several times. She is one of those things you never knew you needed, but, once discovered, do not know how you did without. She has a wide knowledge of herbs, poisons and cures. She has travelled across the continent, learning from high court physicians, barber-surgeons, gypsies, even witches. She has distilled the effective treatments from all the wives’ tales, knows what really benefits ailing bodies. And then last night, she delighted me further.
It was just before seven, and we were in the salon, sipping a cordial before supper. I was already suitably impressed with her medicinal knowledge, and although she is not a beauty, there was an efficiency in the way she presented herself—chestnut hair pulled back into a firm, elegantly swirled bun, her clothing plain, but made from a beautiful, solid muslin—that I could respect. She is no maiden, but she has an energy in her countenance that is strong, almost virile. I tested her.
I remarked that I often dread this time of day.
She asked me if what I dreaded was the darkness, which is almost perpetual this time of year. She barely moved as she spoke, and stared straight at me, turning her crystal goblet slowly, methodically between her fingers. It seemed, almost, that she wanted to know something about me. But she was patient, and played the part I cast for her.
I told her it wasn’t the darkness, but that my seamstresses are supposed to finish their day’s work by seven, precisely. And at seven, I must go and check on them. Immediately, she said it was dreadful that the lady of the house must perform such a task herself, and that my seamstresses must be very lazy, insolent girls if they need to be hounded so much.
I agreed that it was rather offensive. I sipped the last of the dark maroon liquid in my goblet. I told her that I have found that it is best to take a firm hand with these girls, and that sometimes I bring Helena or Dorca along, but it is me they fear the most. I set down my glass and returned her look.
She requested if she could accompany me this evening and share some techniques I might find pleasing.
She was astounding with my girls. When we walked in, the silly slatterns were talking, and by the large pile of garments by the door, it was clear that they were not done their work. Darvulia singled out the small-breasted, tall one, I think she is called Tania. She walked over to Tania’s chair and soundly slapped her across the face. The girl started blubbering immediately.
Darvulia shook the girl by the shoulders and asked her why she dared to talk while there was still work to do. Tania started to make excuses, said something about Helena dropping off a fresh batch of sewing only a half-hour ago, but Darvulia slapped her again and again, until her nose bled and she was silent.
Then Darvulia threaded the girl’s darning needle. She motioned for me to come over and told me to hold the girl’s head. Then she stuck the needle down through the girl’s upper lip and guided it out through her lower. The girl screamed, and Darvulia hit her again, this time hard on the head, to stun her still. The girl quieted, and Darvulia continued to sew. In just a few moments she had caged the mouth with dark blue thread. The girl’s face was a swollen mess of bruises. Blood seeped from the needle punctures that rimmed her lips.
I laughed and smiled. I would have been delighted just at this act, but she had more to show me. One of the girls, a new one, I don’t know her name, only that she is short and a bit chubby, starting whimpering, then gasping repeatedly, like a hysteric. Darvulia looked to me, said that my girls were snivellers, and that she could quiet them.
I nodded and she moved towards the girl, grabbed her by the hair, dragged her away from her table and pulled her towards the stove where the flatirons were heating. The girl continued to scream. Darvulia picked up an iron and shoved the hot triangle into the girl’s nose and face. The girl made an unintelligible noise, her mouth first blocked, then transformed from orifice to wound by the searing metal. Her nose, which was piggish to begin with, seemed to melt under the pointed tip of the iron, and the flesh, then the bone of her jaw sank in. I could hear the muscle and fat bubble, and the room smelled of burnt meat. The girl eventually fainted, and Darvulia pulled the iron away, dropped the body on the floor. The face was ravaged; the eyes were intact, but the nose, mouth and jaw were a raw, simmering wound.
After supper, I asked Darvulia to stay for some Tokaji. I told her how pleased I was with how she handled my seamstresses. And I told her what I had discovered, with the blood and my skin. She did not blink once. Instead, she put down her glass of wine and put her hand on my forearm. She said that if I would allow it, we could do much of this work together.
She is to move into the castle and join my entourage at the end of this week.
The lips threaded shut, the iron melting the girl’s mouth. The images of Darvulia torturing the seamstresses consume me, make my anxieties about Henry and Maria’s friendship seem small as a hangnail. I think of Foster’s evasions. I imagine him in his sideroom with his little pile of books and magazines. What would he tell me in exchange for a look at a copy of Báthory’s diaries?
I need to get the rest from her, to know if they are authentic. Maybe it’s best to be friendly. I dial her number.
“Darling,” she says, “so wonderful to hear from you. My email, you received it?”
“Yes.” I want to ask if I can come over right now and look at the photos, the proof that they’re real. “Very compelling.”
“I thought you would like it. I am very glad. And you and Henry, you are coming to the Tate tomorrow?”
The way she says it sounds like she assumes there’s no way we wouldn’t. It almost makes me want to tell her no. But I try to sound cheerful and force myself to say, “Um, yeah, I think we can.”
“Good, good,” she says. “We have hardly seen each other lately. It will be so wonderful for all of us to go out, do something fun.”
“Yes, sure.” It’s true, I haven’t seen her since the opening, even though she’s been almost omnipresent: the emails, diaries, studio visits with Henry. She’s too much in my life, but only as a phantom; I haven’t been alone with her in weeks.
“So, did you see your Henry’s review last week?” she asks.
“Yes. It’s clipped out and posted on our fridge. Nice photo.” I can’t keep the sarcasm from creeping in.
“Yes,” says Maria, “Edward said the paper was very pleased with it. Much good feedback, from readers.”
“That’s nice.” I pause and restrain myself from asking if Edward has heard anything else Foster-related around the newsroom.
“And Henry, he is pleased?”
“Of course.”
“Did he mention, Edward and I, we visited with him yesterday, at his studio.”
“Yes, he mentioned you were very friendly.”
“Ah, well. He is very kind. So, we shall all meet tomorrow, two o’clock?”
Again, she seems sincere. Maybe she is in her own spontaneous and eccentric way. Maybe, as Henry said, she’s the most interesting friend I have.
We file onto Millennium Bridge and merge with the pedestrians pouring across the Thames. Henry’s in a good mood this afternoon. We’re walking slowly, watching boats on the river. I reach to hold his hand. He looks at me, smiles and puts his arm around my shoulder, pulls me in synch with his step, his hipbone brushing my waist. We stop halfway across and lean against the railing. “You look nice today, peach delight,” he says. “Pretty dress.” He runs his hand down the side of my skirt, holds me close.
Things feel easy together, how they used to feel all the time before we moved. It’s just been a period of adjustment, I tell myself. The new city, new flat. The new job that’s a lot more complicated than I anticipated.
We hadn’t been dating long when I decided to move here with him. We were in his studio and he was smoothing strips of plaster-soaked cotton around my left leg. Six inches above my kneecap, the brush of his fingers against my inner thigh tickled.
“I told you, stay still.” He didn’t look up and continued to wrap.
“I’m trying.”
“Just relax. Have more wine.”
In my right hand I held a cup half full of shiraz. I took a sip, careful not to wiggle too much.
It was February. Two months before Henry’s graduating show. We were in his studio and I was a model for his final project. He had piles of plaster casts of body parts scattered around the room. Hands in one corner, a few backs in another. Four chests, two female, rested by the door; three torsos and a male pelvis lay nearby. I sat in the middle of the room on a folding chair in my bluebell-print panties. My leg was propped up on a plastic milk crate, knee bent at a thirty-degree angle.
“That’s better,” he said. “Don’t I take care of my models?”
His head was down, focused on the plaster. He wrapped the damp cotton farther up my leg. The cloudy plaster water bled off the material, inched towards my hipbone and blotted out the faint café-au-lait birthmark on my inner thigh. I watched the top of Henry’s head as he wrapped, his severe widow’s peak, an occasional flash of the half-hoop earrings that looked like fangs in his lobes. He stopped wrapping the plaster a few inches from my panties. Finally he looked at me, a half smile, his gold-brown eyes crinkling at the corners.
“Think you can stay still while it dries, princess?”
“I’m a professional.” I said. “We models suffer for art.”
“That’s the way I like it.” He stood up and ran his hand up the right side of my abdomen, his hands still wet from the plaster, threatening to tickle me.
“Hey!” I shouted.
“Just kidding, relax.” He crossed to the other side of the room, grabbed a few rags and started to clean his hands. His green T-shirt, littered with white smudges, was a half size too small for his tall, lean frame.
“Only the most dedicated model could maintain her composure in such a challenging environment,” I said.
He dropped the rags, poured himself a glass of wine from the box he kept on the shelf beside his books. “Well, then,” he said, pulling up another milk crate and sitting down beside me, “I’ll have to keep you around. Not that you’re going anywhere right now.” He motioned to my leg.
Henry had been accepted to the residency in London the previous week. We’d gone for pints of Moosehead the afternoon he received the news. But for me the celebration was tinged with anxiety. We hadn’t discussed what would happen between us when he left in the fall. We’d been dating five months. I was due to defend my dissertation in the spring and I was applying for a few jobs, but I didn’t really know yet what I was doing after graduation. Ever since the letter came, Henry had been talking about nothing but London.
I drank the rest of my wine. “You’ll never find a better model in London.”
He laughed. “Really, it’s a pretty big city.” He stood up, took my plastic cup and refilled it from the box.
“Yeah, but, I mean...”
“What?” He handed me the cup and sat back on the milk crate.
“It’s just, you know.” I wanted him to say,
No one could be better than you, I’ll miss you terribly, would you come with me?
“Know what?” He leaned back, tilted his head down and stared. His eyes were close-set, wolfish. When he stared at me like that, I felt exposed, a stray kitten. I didn’t know what to say.
I squirmed.
“Stay still—it’s not quite set yet,” he said.
I wanted to leave, but his almost-dry cast kept me captive. Underneath, my skin was starting to itch.
Henry stood up. “London’s going to be amazing. The program, the city. Everything. So much more going on there.” He moved behind me and put an arm around my shoulder. He started smoothing my hair.
I didn’t want to lose him to this move, yes. But I also felt jealous. He was moving to an exciting city to pursue an opportunity, a discipline he was passionate about. I pictured what the year ahead held for me: stacks of job applications, intense interviews, grant proposals, laborious research studies. No adventure. No risk. Since he’d received the news, I’d been daydreaming of going to London too. I’d pictured myself working at Stowmoor, where I knew Foster was serving his sentence. I imagined starting an exciting, important new job at one of the biggest forensic hospitals in Europe and working on my dream case.
“You’re quiet,” he said, kissing the top of my head. “Five more minutes and we’ll cut you loose from this thing.”
“Henry, what if I came with you?”
When Henry and I hit the south end of the bridge, we walk around the outside of the Tate Modern and down the concrete ramp to the huge, factory-like entrance. Henry drops his arm; we weave between families pushing strollers and green-haired teenagers sporting ripped black fishnets.
I see Maria waiting for us at the base of the ramp; she spots us and starts to wave. Her hair is loose and looks almost white against her bright red wool coat.
“Henry! Dani! Over here!” she says, hopping up and down.
I can’t help but smile a little. I look at Henry and he’s full-on grinning. “Good to see you!” he says, as we approach Maria. She embraces him and kisses him on each cheek.
“And Dani!” She hugs me as well, gives me the two kisses, and then keeps hold of my hand. “It is so wonderful that you could make it, with the short notice. We will all have such a wonderful day.”