The Passion of Artemisia (31 page)

“Who said I don't care?”

“Your silence said it. Just now. When I told you what they did to me in court, what your grandfather let them do. It's not that I want to open old wounds. That's ancient history for me. I'm tired of thinking about it. But for you, you just learned this and yet you've said nothing.”

“What am I supposed to say?”

“Say what you feel.”

For a moment, we just stared at each other, numb. I tried to swallow, but my throat seemed filled with sand.

“See? You don't show any feelings with words or with paint. But an artist's feeling is the white-hot core of painting. Do you want to be limited forever like Agostino? He can't paint people because he has no heart. That's why he'll never last. What's inside you? A heart, or only dresses and dreams? What is a heart but the working of the imagination in behalf of another person? Think. What white-hot passion is going to make Bathsheba betray her husband? Feel it yourself.” I touched her belly. “Right there. What passion is burning in you for Andrea? You've got to use your own emotions and paint with your own blood if need be in order to discover and prove the truth of your vision.”

“That's crazy. No one would do that.”

“Renata would!” I snapped. “She would have done anything to paint well.”

“Renata was a little whore. Pleading ‘take me with you,' like a baby as we left the house.”

“That's exactly what I mean. Desperation. You've got to want it enough that the thought of it being taken from you
would
make you a little crazy. I should have brought her with us. She'd never give up, whining that it was hard. Of course it's hard. If it weren't hard every washerwoman would be painting. But they wouldn't paint with their own hands bleeding onto the canvas. Like I did!”

“When? You never did that!”

I threw down my brush and splayed my fingers right in front of her eyes. “Take a good look, Palmira. A nice—long—look.” I said it slowly, separating the words. “Harder to look at than my nakedness now, isn't it? What do you see?”

“Lines.”

“Yes, well, use your puny imagination and tell me what they're from.”

“You always told me they were age lines.” Her voice quavered.

“Because I didn't want you to see the ugliness in the world. That was my mistake. These are not age lines, Palmira. I got them when I was your age.”

I moved toward her, bending forward, one slow step at a time, my hands still thrust in her face. She backed away.

“They're torture lines, scars from wounds inflicted in court the day a rapist called me a whore. So don't you
ever
use that word lightly.”

I grabbed her by the elbow and marched her over to stand in front of my
Judith Slaying Holofernes.
“That's my blood on that mattress, and it's my pain that started this career that kept you in bread and ball gowns, so don't you dare say it's crazy.”

I stormed outside and slammed the door. Let her wonder whether I'd come back. Her life had been too easy, and in an easy life, the imagination doesn't grow.

I strode down the lane ripping leaves off bushes. Palmira. Oh, Palmira. What mistake did I commit in raising you that made you so unfeeling? Not even a murmur of condolence.
Not a touch of your hand to mine. Not a ripple of compassion across your features.

I remembered when I'd given her Michelangelo's brush on her last birthday, telling her that of all the things I owned, that brush was the most valuable to me. She'd turned it over, stroked her wrist with the brush hairs, pretended she was painting with it, and then had passed it back to me saying, “You keep it, Mother.” I thought at the time that it was reverence that made her give it back to me. No. That wasn't it at all. She had no feeling for the gift.

Walking seemed my only comfort. Winter dusk came early, turning the houses inward. I came to the little rise where I knew I'd see a sliver of bay, and stopped to slow down my breathing.

No, Palmira's life wasn't easy. That wasn't completely right. She saw how the rich live and then went to bed cold. Four times she'd been uprooted. I swore I would not do that to her again. Now that she knew my whole history, would she forgive me for denying her a father for the sake of art? Or, in her mind, was the sacrifice I imposed on her too great? Why was it that art had to cost so much to achieve?

I had to accept that the stories behind my paintings meant nothing to Palmira even though to me, those women were as real as sisters. At least there were some patrons in the world intrigued by a woman artist painting women. But if my own daughter didn't care about the women I painted, who, beyond those few patrons, would? Down the sweep of years and centuries, would what I'd done matter? I had to believe that there was a purpose in painting every Bathsheba, every Judith, Lucrezia, Susanna. Not thinking so would mean a lifetime of futile work.

I watched the oval moon rise over the bay, lighting a wavy swath of liquid pewter just beneath it. It lacked luster. Galileo's night pearl, dull and flat as a dirty plate. Had he felt his work was futile when he had to recant his beliefs?

I waited until I felt calm, and then I opened the door quietly. Palmira was staring at the tile floor, a piece of bread in her hand. Some cheese and two slices of sausage were left on a plate. She pushed the plate toward me. I poured more wine, took some cheese, and sat down.

I stared into the ruby liquid. “What is it that you really want?” My voice sounded hollow.

“I want to marry Andrea.”

I tore off a piece of bread and sopped it in olive oil. “More than anything else in the world? It must be that, you know.”

She nodded. Her rosy hands rested in her lap, palms up, curled like shells. They were, as yet, unmarked by work or pain.

“Not just the idea of being married, any more than the idea of being a painter.”

“I know, I know.” She sighed loudly, annoyed. “I want to be really married. To a man, not a job.”

I couldn't respond to that or we'd start all over again.

“Andrea wants to, too. He told me so at the ball.” She spoke in the same petulant voice I remembered from our years in Florence.

I thought of how Pietro and I had carried her as a young child into the great churches and galleries of the city. How we had breathed as one when we held her out to the bishop in the Baptistry. How the beauty of Pietro's body had made me want love again. And how Palmira must be longing for the same. How could I expect her to choose my passion over hers? She had a chance for what I'd longed for—to marry out of love.

“All I want is for you to want something so deeply you ache for it as I ache to paint well.” I took a sip of wine and smiled at her. “I will make inquiries.”

“You will?”

“Negotiations don't usually start with the bride's family, but Francesco will help us. Andrea's father is a courtier to the countess. She owes me a favor, Francesco says. He'll know what to say to make her think it's her idea.”

Palmira flung herself at me and hugged me on her knees.

“That's only part of it. There's the issue of the dowry.”

She let go and leaned back on her heels.

“I'll have to work a long time before I'll have the money Andrea's family expects,” I said. “You'll have to work too. It might be easier for you when you're working for a goal that's important to you. You're not too young to sell that Bathsheba, so tomorrow we'll
both
get an early start.”

We drank from the same glass and let the idea settle. I noticed Father's letter on the table. I read it again. I could go to England alone, after the wedding, if there was one. It might be my only chance to . . . to do what? I didn't know.

I passed her the letter. “What do you think I should do about this?”

“I think you should go.”

“Disrupt my whole life here for him?”

“Not for him. For you. To tell him he was selfish. Did he ever take responsibility for what they did to your hands? Or for humiliating you? Did he ever say he was sorry?”

Surprised, I inhaled slowly and deeply, looking at the word
Papa.
“No,” I whispered.

“You should go.”

“It will only make your dowry even smaller. Your trousseau too.”

“I know.”

“That means fewer linens, dresses, night shifts. A simpler wedding.”

“You should go.”

25
Palmira

O
n Palmira's wedding morning, I pinned a gardenia in her hair, and then stepped back to look at her. Delia had made a pale lavender overskirt of the sheerest silk I'd ever seen which floated over Palmira's blue ball gown and trailed on the floor in the back as lightly as froth. Delia had replaced the white bows with lavender ones, and at one place in the front she had gathered up the overskirt to show the blue underneath matching her bodice.

“The colors are lovely. You look like dawn in Heaven.”

“Do you think Andrea will think so?”

“Everyone will. I wish Pietro could see you. He'd be in awe, and very happy. And Father. He'd be so proud.”

“Don't get soft-hearted, Mother. You're supposed to tell him I think he was selfish.”

“A person isn't all good or all bad, Palmira. He would still love to be here. Let's have only happy thoughts today, so you'll remember your day of days untarnished.”

I sat on the edge of my bed and lifted the lid of my mother's
wooden box where I kept my few important mementos—her bloodstone hair ornament, Galileo's letters, precious little notes from Palmira from when she was learning to write. Under the bottom one, there was the small drawstring bag. I held it to my nose. Oregano. Faint but unmistakable. They hadn't been worn since Umiliana had posed for the Magdalen. That was good because Umiliana was loving. And Graziela's love for her husband had surely erased any stigma of the imperfect pearls given to her as false love tokens.

“Come here,
cara.
”

She spread out her skirt as she sat next to me on the bed. “What, Mama?”

I chuckled. “You haven't called me Mama for years.” She blinked at me, smiling with high expectations of what lay ahead for her. “Open your hand.”

She held her palms up.

I let the little bag drop. She felt with her thumbs. Her eyes opened wide and she recognized the bag. “Mama! Really?”

“Untie the string.”

She let the earrings tumble out into her palm, and sighed at their beauty. She turned each one over, looking at their humps and hollows, and then held them up to dangle.

“Put them on. They were Graziela's, remember?”

“She wants me to wear them?”

I turned my face away so she would not detect the lie. “To have them.”

“Truly?”

“I already told Francesco to add them to your trousseau inventory. Put them on.” I brought over my table mirror. “See? They look beautiful on you.”

She looked at herself, first one side and then the other.

“Graziela would be so happy to see them on you today. She was married once too.”

Palmira's hands fell to her lap. “I didn't know that.”

“The earrings were a gift from her husband, a man named Marcello. Graziela . . .” I caught myself. I couldn't tell her their story today, even as gentle advice to be wary. Only happy thoughts today. Besides, if Palmira couldn't feel Graziela's sorrow, that would be more than I could bear.

“Graziela . . . what?”

“Graziela has told me many things over the years, but of all that she told me, I want you to promise you will remember these words: Do not believe in illusion.”

Waiting for Don Francesco to escort Palmira down the nave, I sat in the first pew looking at the small arrangement of red roses on the altar. The wedding wasn't as lavish as Palmira had dreamed about ever since she was a little girl, but it was certainly grand compared to mine, stark and furtive in a nearly empty church. I looked behind me and smiled at the people I'd invited—a few artists, people for whom I had painted, my apothecary, my joiner, and Delia—but my contribution to the congregation was modest. I so wished Graziela and Paola could have been here.

In his black velvet doublet with lace collar and cuffs, Francesco appeared at the back of the church and held out his arm for Palmira. As they came down the aisle, he looked as proud as if he were her father. I felt a surge of gratitude. He had managed the negotiations masterfully. Affirming that Palmira's purity was without question, and promising that I would give Andrea's parents a painting when I returned from England, he had gotten them to accept a modest dowry. The important thing was that she had had a proper
impalmamento
with the banns published three times at parish masses. Now, in the Mass of the Union, the organ left its last powerful chords suspended under the stone ceiling as
Francesco gave over the bride to Andrea, whose young face shone with love.

When the priest invited the bridal couple to the altar, Palmira's gaze was fixed on Andrea, her eyes dewy with adoration. I felt a warmth radiate through me as unmistakably as though I were the one to be wed and loved tonight. She repeated her vows in a voice that rang with innocence. When the priest intoned,
“Ego jungo vos in matrimonium,”
and joined their hands, she swayed under the heady weight of love. And so did I.

The prayers and responses of the mass seemed interminable. All I wanted to do was to hold her in my arms and whisper some sage advice, but what? Think every day of some new way to please him? Ignore any indications of infidelity and go right on loving him? Keep peace between you by obeying your mother-in-law? I felt a sharp pang. Now Palmira was more that mother's daughter than mine.

At the supper afterward, Francesco, looking down the table to the bridal couple, leaned toward me and asked in a low voice, “Wouldn't it be nice to think they'll always feel about each other as they do at this moment?”

“They might, if she's clever enough to keep him tantalized and feeling manly, and if she doesn't demand too much.”

“And if she's not?”

“If not, she'll survive. There's always painting.”

Feeding me an artichoke heart on the tip of his fork and grinning, he said, “And so, my lovely, talented, gracious lady, you are, from this time forth, free of motherhood. Free to be completely you. Free to—”

“Never free of motherhood. She will always be my child, to me.
Grazie a Maria,
she has had the privilege of choice. Tonight and always, I pray that she'll remain mindful of that.”

“And to whom else are you grateful, tonight, that she could marry the man she chose?”

I rolled my eyes sideways toward him and touched my glass to his. “To you, Don Maringhi, my brilliant negotiator.”

“Negotiator? Only that?”

I closed my eyes, smiled, and lifted my shoulders.

“Just so you don't forget while you're in England on that fool's errand that I await your return . . . to serve you faithfully.”

“Not a fool's errand.”

“Then what? A filial obligation?”

“I'm not sure.”

“Then why go?”

“To find out what I'm capable of, for one thing.” I took a drink of wine, turning my shoulder to him slightly. “Don't forget it was my father who taught me the skill that you benefit from.”

The priest came downstairs from the bedchamber above the dining hall where he'd gone to sprinkle holy water on the marriage bed. “It is ready,” he announced.

Andrea's friends became suddenly boisterous, teasing Andrea and Palmira, singing rousing love songs and holding glasses of wine aloft. Young women, not permitted at the nuptial mass but present now, laid red rose petals up the stairs to their bedchamber. I realized with a start what they stood for: the blood of Palmira's purity. The young people gathered around Palmira and Andrea to whisk them upstairs. I rushed to Andrea's side and took his elbow. He bent down so I could say in his ear, “Take her gently, Andrea. Such a flower bruises easily.”

I only had an instant to hug Palmira and whisper, “It's easier if you relax. It's all right to ask him to go slowly.”

“Don't worry, Mama. He loves me.”

“Laugh a little together every day,
no matter what.
”

“
Sì,
Mama.”

In a moment, Palmira and Andrea were hoisted aloft on young men's shoulders and borne high above the crowd up the stairs. Palmira looked back at me with her gardenia hanging loose and her face marked by exhilarated trepidation. My throat constricted in a spasm of happiness. I blew her a kiss.