The Watercolourist (21 page)

‘So, you finally decided to paint portraits. I told you it was more worthwhile.’

Bianca is startled to discover Donna Clara standing behind her, and this time in the space she has carved out in the study. She has no place just for herself downstairs, and so when she does
work there, these interruptions happen often. Even so, she needs to get out of her room. Donna Clara pulls out the portrait of the mysterious woman that Bianca has composed quickly and then never
touched again. She fixes her lorgnette on her nose in a nest of flesh and wrinkles.

‘Beautiful. It reminds me of someone . . . Was it done from memory?’

‘No, actually it wasn’t. It’s a woman I met.’

‘Tell me, who? I know, I know . . . but no, it can’t be. There’s no way you could know her. My mind is deceiving me, my age, my imagination, and all the rest of it.’
Donna Clara strides around the room as she speaks, bobbing her head from side to side like a bird. And then she discards the idea. ‘Anyway, it’s a good job. Very good. My
compliments.’

Bianca is silent: what can she possibly say in return? The old woman puts the composition back down on the desk.

‘When will you do my portrait? Although, thinking about it, I don’t really want a painting of myself. My mirror is good enough. It’s a sad day, my dear, when you don’t
recognize the person in the reflection and she’s staring you straight in the eye. You’d like to make her disappear with a wave of the hand – shoo, you ugly beast! – and
instead see the person you once were. But that other woman is gone. She’s lost, never coming back. Time is no gentleman, not one bit. So unless you can be kinder than the mirror . . . but I
know you. You are fixated on the truth and you’d make me into a monster, into the monster I am.’

She chuckles, turns around, and walks away.

There is nothing to laugh about later, however, when Bianca comes across her sketch of the mysterious woman torn in half, and deliberately placed on top of a pile of her other drawings. Just two
days have passed; she hasn’t shown it to anyone else, nor has she reworked it. She has only put it aside, as one does with ideas when they are still unclear. Whoever wished to slight her
clearly looked for that specific drawing.

Bianca lifts the two pieces of torn paper and fits them together, her hands trembling. The woman stares out at her, her eyes slightly off-kilter and her mouth folding into a smile. She is
beautiful, achingly beautiful, aching
but
beautiful. And she no longer exists.

The sabotage is unexpected and fills her with anger.

The children’s mother and grandmother are not around; they have gone to the city to run some errands. Although it is late summer, it is still incredibly hot, as hot as July. Even Donna
Clara admitted yesterday, after three lemon sorbets failed to restore her energy, ‘It’s as hot as hell here in Brusuglio. Summer is scorching. And then in winter we freeze. No matter
how you look at it, we lose. Although, the sky is so beautiful when it’s clear, it’s heavenly. I always tell my son, not even in my beloved Paris did I see such skies.’

Bianca is shocked that someone would actually tear her drawing. She decides that she will have to deal with it in her own way, and in the meantime do something that makes
her
happy, for
once. Nanny is taking her nap now and she sleeps heavily. The boys have gone with Ruggiero to see the foals in the Bassona stables and won’t be back until nightfall. The cool water of the
brook is inviting and far enough away that no one will hear them splashing about. Minna is Bianca’s accomplice.

‘I’ll help you, Miss Bianca. But will the girls be quiet?’

Bianca doesn’t know and doesn’t care. She wants to have some fun. If someone finds out, she can always count on the master’s support. Hasn’t he applauded the English form
of education some time ago at dinner? And so, off they go, one after the other, Minna leading the procession with a basket of delicious snacks hanging from one arm.

The girls are perplexed.

‘Where are we going?’ Giulietta speaks for everyone. She understands that this isn’t going to be just like any other picnic. Usually they go up to the clearing or to the
meadows with the birches, but no further than that.

‘It’s a secret,’ Bianca tells them, as she guides the girls along the trail that brings them to the far reaches of the estate, where the brook divides the cultivated land from
the wilderness.

‘Are we allowed to do this?’ whispers Francesca, intelligent enough to realize that secrets can also often be trouble.

‘Yes, we are,’ Bianca reassures her. ‘Just because you have never done it, doesn’t mean it’s not allowed.’

They are all pleasantly surprised to find Pia already there, sitting on the ground and leaning against a tree trunk, braiding a garland of different kinds of white wildflowers.

‘What are you doing here?’

‘I overheard you speaking to Minna, Miss Bianca. But I know how to keep secrets. May I stay?’

There is an absolute calm to her manner. She already knows that Bianca’s answer will be yes. Actually, Bianca almost feels bad for not having asked her earlier or sending someone to seek
her out. But Pia is already standing, joyful and incapable of bitterness.

‘And now what?’ Francesca asks. She still does not understand exactly what they are doing there.

‘Now we will take a dip,’ Bianca explains.

‘In the brook?’ Giulietta asks with a smile.

‘In the brook,’ Bianca echoes. ‘It’s cool and clean. You’ll see how nice it feels.’

Being obedient, the girls don’t react, but it is clear that they would prefer to be somewhere else, even in the nursery, although it is the hottest room in the house, with their dolls, the
tired wooden pony, and the wooden blocks. They stand there, transfixed, arms hanging by their sides, staring at the water. It has never looked so frightening. Pia begins to undress Francesca, Minna
helps Giulietta, and Bianca takes care of Matilde. It is she, the youngest one, who screams first.

‘I’m not taking off my clothes! It’s embarrassing!’

Bianca picks the child up and carries her behind a tree that is wide enough to hide her.

‘No one will see you here,’ she says, continuing to undress her with a calm firmness. Matilde’s little body is round and pale and her tummy juts out. Bianca would love to draw
her now. The other girls, undergoing the same treatment, don’t say a word. And then finally Giulietta shrieks, her voice suffused with excitement.

‘Can we learn how to swim like Pietro and Enrico?’

‘Better than Pietro and Enrico!’ answers Bianca, coming out from behind the tree holding Matilde by the hand.

Bianca quickly steps out of her own clothes and stands in her undershirt and slip. If she was alone, she would also remove those items but she suspects that none of the girls have ever seen an
adult fully undressed. She is sure that Pia and Minna wouldn’t mind, but the other three might.

Giulietta looks at Bianca closely.

‘Miss Bianca, you have freckles on your arms, too!’

Bianca smiles. ‘I’ve always had them. What can I do, erase them?’

Giulietta laughs at the idea, and then gets distracted by Pia, who looks so different without her bonnet. Pia slips down the smooth bank of tall grass and splashes into the water, laughing.

‘Is it cold?’ Giulietta asks.

‘It’s delightful,’ answers Pia, moving through the water like a dog.

‘Look, she’s floating!’ Francesca says.

‘Everyone can float. All you need to do is move around a bit,’ explains Bianca, entering the water slowly. The water in the brook is not deep. It comes up to her waist, and is
stingingly fresh. She feels sand and grass beneath her feet. The ground is firm.

‘So who’s coming in first?’ she says, holding her arms up high, ready to embrace the most fearless one. Surprisingly, Matilde makes her way forward. She only needs to be in
someone’s arms. When her tiny feet touch the water, she lets out a little shriek but doesn’t cry. Bianca holds her tightly as the water swirls around her undershirt.

Francesca is more courageous. She takes a seat on the grassy bank and lets herself slide into the brook as Pia has done. In an instant she is standing with the water up to her chest and laughing
in excitement.

Minna and Giulietta hold hands and enter the water together cautiously, shrieking when the stream takes hold of them. Everyone is finally in. Pia has swum off and now turns back towards them,
creating ripples in the water. They all hold hands and make a sort of ring, Bianca with Matilde in her arms. The game ends when Minna does some sort of dive, throwing herself forward, disappearing
and then reappearing again, her hair dripping in front of her face. They all laugh. Minna raises her arms victoriously.

‘It feels so good.’

‘Can I go underwater too?’ Giulietta asks.

‘Yes, but remember to blow your air out, otherwise you might drown,’ Pia explains and shows her how, by going underwater herself and emitting a whirlpool of bubbles.

‘What should I do with my eyes?’

‘Do as you please. Keep them open and you’ll see green. Keep them closed, and you won’t see a thing.’

Giulietta goes down and then comes right back up, coughing and rubbing her eyelids.

‘I have water in my nose!’ she complains.

‘Pinch it closed,’ Pia says and again shows her how.

The little girl makes another attempt, this time with her nose pinched. When she resurfaces she is smiling.

‘I saw green, I saw green!’

Matilde, still in Bianca’s arms, moves her tiny feet back and forth in excitement, splashing rhythmically.

Francesca copies her older sister.

‘I saw a fish!’ she exclaims as she resurfaces.

Everyone laughs. Above them, the sun toys with the leaves. Splashes of light pass through the branches, rest on the surface of the brook, and then disappear. There is no noise, only the humming
of cicadas and the slow swishing of water. They enjoy the moment silently. Bianca looks at all her companions’ faces, one by one, and their differing expressions of pleasure. Giulietta wears
a concentrated smile, trying hard not to forget a thing. Francesca, though, smiles widely and holds tightly to Minna’s hand. Minna gazes up at the sky, now a light blue above the leaves.
Matilde looks serious, her eyes large, dilated by wonder.

And then, just like that, the quiet moment ends. Pia, who Bianca now notices is actually quite curvaceous and not so little, pulls herself up the bank, takes the garland she has left there, and
crowns herself with it. She laughs and goes under the water again, kicking her feet and splashing the other girls, who shield themselves with their hands.

Pia stands up in the brook, combing back her hair with her fingers, pulling it away from her face in an elegant motion. The little ones copy her. It is then that Bianca notices the
resemblance.

It is in the shape of her head and her facial structure, and it is shockingly apparent.

The perplexity on Bianca’s face must be evident.

‘What’s wrong, Miss Bianca? You’ve gone all white,’ Pia says, then giggles. She laughs cheerfully, and so do the others, and then suddenly none of them can stop.

After their outing, the only trace of the crime is a few white shirts and knickers hung out to dry on the clothes line behind the kitchens, bottoms up, like ghosts dangling from the trees.
Nanny, who has no idea what has happened, is surprised by the girls’ fatigue, and she comes down to chat to Bianca after having put them to bed.

‘They were dead tired and went to sleep immediately. If only they were always so cooperative. Ah, I see Ilide did some laundry?

But, it’s not laundry day today . . .’

Bianca and Minna look at each other conspiratorially. Pia is not there. She must have gone on one of her walks. The evening is mild and quiet. The half-moon hangs in the air, as bright as a
lantern.

The afternoon dip hasn’t been enough to satisfy Bianca. And so she retraces her steps back down the path that she, the girls and the maids took, but this time alone. The
leaves shield the moonlight now and make it hard to see, but she knows the way. It is as if the smell of the water guides her – a green, pleasant, familiar and natural scent. Like her very
own, within the folds of her sheets.

This time, given that she is alone and darkness hides her, she removes all her clothes the way she used to do at home in the small swimming hole near the manor, which belonged to a
conte
who only left the house to go to church. It is dark and deserted. The water feels more daring, though, and it caresses every bit of her body, even the most hidden parts.

The moon is high and the trees along the bank form a straight corridor, fringed only by some light branches. The moonlight casts parallel shapes on the black water. Bianca leans back, her feet
anchored to the soft muddy ground, and looks up but doesn’t let herself go. It is as if she doesn’t want to lose control, abandon herself. She breathes in the perfume of the wet country
night mixed with the velvet smell of the water. She feels good.

Her hand brushes up against something. Tangled in a branch is Pia’s crown of flowers, still intact. Bianca frees the wreath and lets it float off. She follows it, moving her arms and legs
gently, only enough to keep afloat. She allows herself to think about what she hasn’t had time to before, but which presses on her mind like a migraine. Is it conceivable? How can it be? But
. . . the shape of her face. It certainly is possible. Everything about Pia’s history leads Bianca to believe that it is possible. It is strange, though, that the girl lives there, so close
to him. Maybe it is chance. Or maybe it is a bolder way of challenging fate, displaying the fruit of the crime right under everyone’s noses. But whose fault is it, after all? Certainly not
Don Titta’s. It is never a man’s fault. It must be the mother’s fault. But who is the mother? Is she still around, somewhere, or has she been forgotten like a minor historical
figure? And when did it all happen?
He came to Paris when he was twenty
, Donna Clara said. Something must have happened at some point between the era of the curious child in the portrait
and the twenty-year-old man going to meet his mother in Paris.