The Watercolourist (31 page)

I understand everything now. It’s all clear. You knew all along, didn’t you? You could have told me. But no, of course not, I understand. Loyalty, your sense of honour, duty, et
cetera. Save yourself the sermon. Now that I know, and now that you know that I know, I need your help. We must do something. That poor girl has the right . . . what right, you say? You, of all
people? Of course, in front of the poet you bow down to all noble principles. Or is there something else I should know? You need time?

I solved the puzzle myself. What, it’s not a puzzle? Well, you are correct. There is no mystery. It’s the same old story. No, I can’t, I won’t ignore the situation.
It is for her own good, you understand? Don’t you want to give her even the smallest glimmer of hope? She’s been nailed to a fate that she didn’t ask or wish for. She could have
so many possibilities in life; she needs so little, and could reclaim everything. What’s that? Like me? You flatter me, really, you do. But I am a poor role model. Trust me. I have had
everything all along, and I did nothing to deserve that which she has been denied. Talent, you say? You really believe that my talent makes a difference? It doesn’t count a whit more than
fortune, or fate, or whatever you call it. And how do you know that she doesn’t possess unspoken talents? She is still only a child . . .

Bianca’s imagined Innes is complacent in his silence, the best confidant for the situation. If only she had the courage. But she is scared. She doesn’t know how to give herself
courage. She is also frightened that he might stop her for any number of excellent reasons. So she contradicts him in her head. But it is only a matter of time and patience. A fourteen-year-old
secret can wait another couple of weeks. So she waits, convinced that eventually she will be able to move the chess pieces across the table. She doesn’t understand that the game is not hers
to play, and that she has no power really, not even over the poorest pawn.

Bianca’s drawing needs full outlines before she can fill in the shadows, and several details are still missing. She needs to imagine the poet before he became a poet, back
when he was just a reckless boy, a city boy with a long name and an empty brain, before the muses kidnapped him, before the desire for domestic piety pushed him to seek his perfect bride. She needs
to find out more by teasing it out of Donna Clara.

Bianca is like a cat with a ball of yarn. She almost feels bad about having to trick Donna Clara, but she has to find out.

It is a pity that the poet’s mother is so cautious. She ignores the inappropriate parts of the story and sheds light only on her preferred ones, the parts that illustrate her in all the
glory of filial love. The rest of it might not have even occurred. Don Titta was born when he decided it was the right time, which is to say when he was twenty years old. But Bianca keeps her ears
open for clues as the story progresses.

‘I remember it well. He arrived in Paris on the tenth of April. Before that, you know, the season wasn’t right and the road not safe, so he waited for the first safe journey. He
waited because he knew I would be worried about him crossing the Alps, up there in the snow among the wolves and avalanches.’ Bianca smiles sympathetically as Donna Clara takes advantage of
the occasion to bask in her memories. ‘They got along from the very start, my Carlo and my Titta. Father and son in spirit, I used to say. Ah, I recall those first strolls in Parc Monceau,
our garden of delights . . . We needed to get to know each other again, he and I. We recognized ourselves in each other, you know? Between mother and child there can be no other way.’ Bianca
nods but has stopped listening. She subtly counts on her fingers. Pia was born in the December of the same year the poet arrived in Paris. Therefore, it is plausible and possible. All she needs is
proof, some kind of confirmation.

Donna Clara cannot stop talking. ‘It was the most beautiful time. Today everyone is fixated on their children. But I sent my boy to a boarding school with the priests because that was the
right thing to do and his father wanted it. And then, when things unravelled as they did, and his father left us for the Lord, I went to Paris with my Carlo, and the boy stayed here in order to
finish school. The good Lord wanted us to be reunited, but as adults, as equals. I don’t know if children really need their mothers when they are young. They don’t know a thing; they
barely even know they are alive, and, as I see it, the more a mother worries, the more a child is spoiled. And then we forget . . .’

It is almost as if she is trying to justify herself. By comparing her own behaviour with that of her daughter-in-law, she wants to come to some absolute conclusion, prove she hasn’t made a
mistake, that she has done the right thing. It is true that the times have changed. But it is also a fact that conventions make life comfortable and easy. They help us to avoid confronting
complicated and risky sentiments.

Bianca thinks of her friend Fanny, who lost her heart to Zeno, only to be informed by her family that she would instead be married to Cavalier Gazzoli, a man twenty years older who owned an
immense property near the rice fields of La Bassa and whom she had never met. She cried for two weeks. She cried even harder when she met her husband-to-be: pudgy, wearing a wig, his nose a network
of veins. Then she visited his home, Villa Salamandra, and came back amazed by the number of rooms. ‘You could play hide-and-seek there,’ she said. ‘And the vast gardens!’
Her tears dried up. Everything became quite lovely, mosquitos included. Which was all well and good as Zeno, with his good looks, never even looked at Fanny.

‘I was everything for my Carlo,’ the older lady continues. ‘I was his confidante, a sister, a mother, a true-life companion. And I knew I was lucky that I had found my
soulmate. Then when Titta came back to me, I had the both of them.’

As Donna Clara lists the glories and joys of her life, it occurs to Bianca that she truly has been fortunate. She’s had everything, and what she didn’t have, she acquired. First a
solid husband. Then a rich, intellectual lover. Then, once her youth faded, she had her son, a fashionable poet whose fame reflected back onto her. Bianca doesn’t need to exert herself to
piece together the joyful past of the proprietress. Everyone knows that Carlo, whom she followed to Paris when her husband was still warm in his coffin, was her lover long before her marriage.
Everyone also knows that Titta and Carlo (who could well have been his father although this was never officially stated) never got along. It is known too, that when Carlo died, Donna Clara was
somewhat relieved. She was tired of being a mediator between the two men, ready to bring her French romance to a conclusion, eager to continue her life of comfort with her lover’s money in
his countryside villa that she’d inherited, and happy to indulge Titta’s desire to leave Paris. And yet she insists that she would have gladly stayed on in the city and become the next
queen of a new salon; that she’d go back tomorrow if she could.

Donna Clara is astute and accustomed to worldly things; she knows that her story has unfolded in the most elegant way, far more than the predictable, banal debaucheries of Parisian life could
ever have permitted. As her beauty fades, familial piety becomes more important. In other words, it is all for the best. It is a shame, though, that she can only talk about Carlo when Titta is not
around. All traces of that other man and his rural domain – his drawings, writings, collections – are in the attic of the country house, inside a long row of chests covered by old rugs
that a maid has once shown to Bianca.

At this point, having obtained the information she wants and from a primary source no less, she takes her leave with the excuse of having a drawing to finish, while the old woman continues to
recite her litany to herself.

The drawing isn’t an excuse, actually. Outside the viburnums have flowered and Bianca wants to draw their white flowers before they fade. Viburnum: the word rolls off her tongue like a
plump berry. She picks up a pencil and asks herself which is more beautiful, the word or the flower. Perhaps poetry
is
a superior art, she thinks. It summons things with a sound and on
paper with a symbol, while her art is mute and rallies only one of the senses, never producing echoes. She wishes she could share her complex thoughts with someone to see if they are absurd or
actually make sense. She might surprise them.

Should she have run away from Donna Clara? There is nobody else in the house to keep the lady company. No, she is better off being quiet and drawing, she thinks. It’s what she knows how to
do best.

Be quiet and draw, be quiet and take a walk, but most importantly, be quiet. The house is a cocoon of enforced peace. The three men disappear once again, this time to discover more about
silkworms, it seems. When Bianca raises an eyebrow at Innes, he shrugs without even trying to answer her silent question. Traitor.

Donna Julie gets her much-needed rest. She is always resting these days, with Donna Clara watching over her, dealing with a silence that must be unbearable for her. The children have been
instructed to behave. Pia is absorbed and pensive; she minds her own business, as if she feels something stirring in the air, the distant arrival of a storm. Bianca leaves her alone.

Sometimes Bianca gets the feeling that her own voice no longer works, she uses it so seldom. It is fine only for ‘good morning,’ ‘goodnight’ and ‘a little more
soup, thank you, but no dessert’. Bianca’s interior monologues remind her of the watery spirals of bindweed, which she tries to draw. By evening, though, she can no longer stand the
peace and runs out to the garden.

Thanks to the insistent rains and mild weather, the city garden has reached its most luxuriant state and has become a neglected realm of delight. She enjoys this weather. She likes to watch the
earthworms, how they contort their bodies to smell the air with their nose, only to return underground, ready to eat up the world. And then there is the moving loyalty of the bulbs. They are the
ever-faithful dogs of the flower world, ready to bloom in the same place, year after year. But in that small swatch of green between the high walls of the buildings, their generous little hands
close too quickly. No one takes the time to look at them, and then suddenly, they are gone.

What a waste
, Bianca thinks as she caresses the tips of the palmetto leaves and the corners of the banana plant, burning with green.
What a waste
, she thinks again, the thought
itself like a sharp splinter of glass that one picks up so that someone else does not step on it and bleed.
When does spring end? Is summer really more beautiful, when everything has happened,
when everything has already been decided, when imagination is useless?
For the first time, Bianca has the feeling that what was will not always be; that any kind of flowering is merely a
delicate deceit. There is no grand design. There is no room for the unexpected. It is all anticipated, predictable, and therefore as if it has already happened.
Where will I be when this tree
is laden with fruits? What will I be like? Will something have changed, or will I still be here, leafing through pages?
Bianca delights in these thoughts. She lets herself be transported by a
melancholy that makes her feel both serious and adult. She doesn’t realize, however, that she had spoken out loud.

‘I’ve never heard someone summon forth autumn with such grace.’

The man’s voice catches her by surprise and makes her jump.

‘Is that you?’ she asks the shadow with some discomfort, although she is unsure why.

‘I’ve returned alone. Silkworms aren’t for me. They require too much patience. I was scared when I saw the house so dark and silent. The servants are too quiet. It’s as
if they have a secret. Is something happening that I don’t know about?’

‘Only the same old dramas.’

Bianca tries to sound light-hearted, but the phrase comes across as brazen, or perhaps just overly sincere. In any case, it is true. What is more normal than Donna Julie’s perpetual
discomfort? Tommaso completes her thought.

‘If it had been severe, we would have received word and, in any case, I am certain that tomorrow morning at breakfast I will be given an abundance of details. I can wait. But you, so alone
in this damp garden . . . you’ll catch cold. Or are you demanding your share of attention?’

Bianca is stupefied. What did she say or do, now or even prior to that, for him to know her so well? Has he guessed? Or is this just another innocent skirmish? Tommaso often says things only for
the sake of saying them. He conquers boredom through provocation. How long has he been spying on her, listening to her strange rant? She isn’t quick enough to answer so he presses on.

‘Don’t be afraid. If you are so eager to taste the fruit, inevitably it will be attracted to you.’

There is so much intimacy in that sentence. It is the sort of intimacy that is not permitted but is often stolen without consideration. Bianca wraps herself up tightly in her shawl, trying to
avoid those burning eyes, which, even in darkness, see her clearly.