The Watercolourist (27 page)

The woman glares at Bianca pointedly, as though trying to convey a warning. Bianca decides to ignore the insinuation nestled within the speech – that somebody has sent her. She isn’t
there to buy the truth, and the idea that it could be for sale hasn’t even crossed her mind.

‘You cannot tell me anything else?’ she says instead. ‘My young friend has reached an age where she would like to know more about herself, about where she comes from . . . And
I am here of my own free will.’

‘Ah, my dear, you will have time to discover that free will is a strange beast.’ The woman seems to want to continue but stops, biting her lip, as if she has already ventured too
much. ‘Your young friend,’ she continues, ‘has no right to know anything about her past. These are the rules. Weren’t you aware of them?’

‘Actually, no, I wasn’t,’ Bianca says, straightening up in anger. Why is there such reticence here, such resistance?

‘Legitimate parents or legal guardians have full liberty to reconnect with the children they have entrusted to this precious institution, as is the case with your friend about whom I have
already generously shared information. But the children have no right to find out who their parents are, if the parents don’t explicitly ask. Just think of the harm it could bring. We need to
remember that there must have been a good reason for these parents to separate themselves from their children. Even if,’ she says, lowering her voice and adding in a whisper, ‘often the
reasons are simply not good enough. In any case, whether it was destitution or fear of scandal, whether our children came from high-profile families or from the most wretched ones, for us they are
all equal once they arrive here. We cannot allow ourselves to make distinctions. Please understand,’ she added. ‘I am not required to tell you this but I will: from the swaddling and
the token, your girl seems to have been born into a good family, which complicates things. Perhaps the mother bore this child out of wedlock. Or she was married but produced this child with a man
who wasn’t her legitimate husband.’

The woman ticks off both hypotheses on her fingers.

You forgot one
, Bianca thinks to herself.
A young man might have run away.

‘It is risky for us to dig further,’ the lady continues. ‘We might crack open a hornets’ nest. This is all I can share with you, young lady. If you are guided by good
intentions, as I believe you are, the best you can do for your girl is assist her in her physical and spiritual growth and make sure that she is good and devout. When the time comes, if you have
the authority to do so, help her marry in the most opportune way.’

‘But . . .’ Bianca’s objection lingers in mid-air. The woman has already stood up and motions for Bianca to do the same.

‘I will walk you out.’

Bianca picks up the token, places it back inside her bag and follows the lady from the room. They walk back down the hallway, more slowly this time. Bianca wants to find an excuse to ask more,
to think of another way to seem more convincing, the way a generous protectress occupied with a legitimate investigation should be. Instead she is shown the door.

‘May God be with you and with your protected one,’ the lady says in farewell. The woman who guards the door stands up to open it. ‘Entrust yourself to the lamb, which rids the
world of sin, or at least, in immense clemency, ignores it,’ she concludes.

Bianca can do nothing but curtsey and exit, pushed out by that calm, heavy gaze. The door closes firmly behind her.

Outside on the street the jumble of coaches, carriages, and shouting tradesmen is deafening and in stark contrast to the silence of the place she has just left. Bianca feels defeated. But
resolutely she straightens herself up and heads back towards the house, as Donna Julie has taught her.

In the city you must always look like you are going somewhere.

She is so lost in her thoughts – replaying the last scenes in her head, the details, seeing again the large water stain on the paper, the piercing gaze of the woman – that she
doesn’t notice someone blocking her way. She has to stop suddenly to avoid bumping into the figure. Her eyes take in a pair of scuffed shoes, then two legs splattered with mud, followed by a
layer of coats, a dirty neck, and a splotch of fresh mud on a boy’s cheek. A flimsy, faded cap completes the portrait of a young street urchin.

‘Go away,’ Bianca says nervously as she attempts to walk around him. But he steps in front of her again and flashes a hint of a smile.

‘Miss, do you need help?’

‘Of course not,’ answers Bianca.

‘But yes, you do. Didn’t you just come from the orphanage? And didn’t you want to know certain things that they didn’t tell you?’

Of course, she thinks. The coming and going of people like herself who seek buried information is certainly not new around here. There is bound to be someone who will try to profit from it. The
young boy – he must be thirteen or fourteen – continues walking beside her.

‘I have a friend who works in there. She can find out what you’re looking for.’

‘They already told me everything,’ Bianca says, slowing down reluctantly. The boy continues in a confident tone.

‘Oh, no. There’s the public registry and there’s the secret registry, which they don’t show to outsiders. In the secret one they write other things, like names. The real
names. And when someone comes to ask about a child, and who that person was, the when and why . . . well, my friend is good at finding out these things. Trust me,’ he says with a wink.
‘Only two
scudi
. One for me, one for her.’

Bianca hesitates. How embarrassing it would be to buy secrets. Then, on impulse, she decides that she likes this boy, that two
scudi
isn’t that much and anyway, she would have
spent them sooner or later.

‘Can you read?’ she asks.

‘No, Miss, I can’t, but my friend can. And anyway my memory is good. I keep everything up here,’ the boy taps his temple.

The transaction is quickly concluded. She gives her name, they set a date to meet again and she pays half of the compensation. She will pay the other half once the information is retrieved, in
precisely two weeks, in the same place, at noon.

What do I have to lose but money?
Bianca asks herself, placing the coin on the child’s curiously clean palm. If only Pia’s happiness could cost so little.

‘What is your name?’ she asks.

‘Girolamo,’ he says, taking off his hat. ‘Here to serve you, Miss.’

He runs off before Bianca has the chance to question him further. Instead she follows him with her eyes and watches him disappear down a dark alley that swallows him up as if he was made of the
same matter. She leaves reluctantly then, feeling the weight of things unfinished.

Her feet move her forward while her mind retraces the encounter. She lingers on a phrase, embroiders a detail, and doesn’t notice where she is going. As if waking from a trance, she finds
herself seated on a stone bench by a big brick church. She has no idea how she has got there. She regains her senses, feels the cold seeping in under her clothes, and around her the heavy stares of
men. No, these aren’t men; they are dirty delivery boys bringing rolls of hides to the leather artisans in the area. The air is swampy; she is near the canal, and it gives off a diabolical
stench.

I need to get out of here
, Bianca thinks. She stands up with resolve, ties her hat ribbons under her chin, jumps over some puddles of dark liquid, and then looks up and around for the
golden Madonna statue, a beacon for people navigating the streets of the city.

Miss Bianca, where on earth did you ruin your skirt like that? In the Naviglio?
one of the maids will probably ask her later. Carlina, Titina, Annina . . . they lead their lives in the
shadows, give themselves up to some dolt, and then become forgettable like all the others. She won’t answer their questions if they ask. And she doesn’t answer the question that she
suddenly hears behind her, making her jump.

‘Miss Bianca! You aren’t lost, are you? Miss Bianca?’

She is just about to turn around but he is faster and steps in front of her. It is Tommaso. He greets her, taking off his hat and offering her his cheek. How different he is outside; no longer a
shy extra, so much surer of himself. Bianca hesitates.

‘I understand the cloudy allure of our shadows,’ he continues. ‘And I understand what drives you here: boredom is stronger than a machine.’

Bianca is silent but then regains control of herself.

‘Ah, but I am never bored. Maybe you were bored – is that why you ran away? Or did your muse allow you to leave?’

She finds that this is the right sort of tone for him, the affectionate banter of siblings.

‘My muse, my muse,’ he replies, guiding her quickly across a wide field beyond which stands a row of luminous Greek-style columns. ‘My muse is a tyrant, that’s for sure.
But my muse is also my only faithful partner. I can’t be with her, and I can’t be without her. I won’t ask what you were doing in that sewer in full daylight,’ he adds,
meaning the opposite.

Bianca decides to take him at face value and remains silent.

‘You are indeed mysterious, Miss Bianca.’

‘Me? I’m like a piece of white paper,’ she replies teasingly.

‘An appropriate comparison. Anything can sprout from it. Perhaps it was already written but in the ink of conspirators, revealing itself only to the astute eye . . .’

‘Oh, be quiet. Don’t we have enough conspirators around the house already?’

A skilful move: Tommaso’s attention is diverted.

‘Don’t be like Donna Clara, I beg you. She sees shadows everywhere,’ he says.

‘That’s because she is afraid for all of you,’ replies Bianca immediately.

‘And for herself. She couldn’t bear to lose what she has built with such tenacity. Her little citadel of ease and respectability would topple down if her most intimate guests and her
very own son insisted on playing politics.’

‘And isn’t she right to worry? She’s a woman: she defends what she has. Her horizon is the house and the garden.’

‘Exactly. And she can’t see beyond the front door. But the day will come when women will stand by our sides instead of lagging one step behind.’

‘Like in a dance?’ Bianca tries to joke.

‘Certainly. At the great ball of the new world.’

Without realizing it, Tommaso has quickened his pace, and Bianca is forced to almost run to keep up.

‘Slow down,’ she protests.

‘I apologize but these discussions touch me deeply,’ he says, amending his gait.

‘More than poetry?’

‘Much more. We should all have the courage to hang our harps from the willow tree; the heart cannot sing if it isn’t free.’

Bianca is silent. She is touched. This Tommaso is completely different from the one she knows. He is so intense and alive.

As they walk silently towards the house, a house that belongs to neither of them but which they have both made their own, united in their search for a calling, she almost forgets what happened
earlier.

‘If you suspected something, Innes . . . something good, that could do a person dear to you some good, that could change her life, what would you do?’

‘If it was only a suspicion? Nothing, my dear. I would keep it to myself, and I’d try to make it a certainty.’ Precisely. Even Innes would do as she has done. So why not
confide in him? Could he be her ally, her accomplice? He is so capable and in control. ‘But to change someone’s life is presumptuous, Bianca. If I were you, I’d take care.’
He is also so inflexible. As straight as a cypress tree. A man of only logic. ‘I know you, Bianca. You are plotting something. I can see it, and I don’t like it.’

They are alone in the living room, waiting to be called to lunch. The long, dull moments in a large household.

‘Oh, come now, don’t be so serious. I was just wondering.’ She thinks it best to be light-hearted to distract him. She will only tell him when it is necessary. Only when every
bit of evidence is clear. In the meantime she defends herself. ‘You are always plotting, too. You and Don Titta. I see you. Sometimes I can even hear you. No, don’t worry, I can hear
but I don’t listen. But I do sense something even from behind closed doors.’

‘What you do not know will not harm you, Bianca.’

He is so serious he is almost frightening. And yet he is, too, a man to whom gravity is becoming, perhaps because he is then especially handsome when laughing or smiling. Like now: his whole
face is lit up with a smile, distracting her.

‘I’m happy to be a source of laughter for you,’ Bianca says condescendingly.

But she is just teasing and he knows it. In fact, he takes her arm and grips it firmly before letting it go.

‘I, too, would like to be entertaining to you but I fear that I don’t have such an amusing personality.’

‘If I wanted to be entertained, I’d go to the theatre, where everything is pretend, even passion. It’s real passion that interests me. Your passion,’ she says.

He misunderstands, perhaps on purpose.

‘Mine? There’s little passion here. Horses, maybe, but I cannot afford my own. Literature, yes, because it costs less. Life, with all that it sets aside: surprises and trapdoors,
twists and turns.’