Too many wishes for one mere dandelion. Under present circumstances, I knew if I had only one wish, it would have to be this—that I could earn my way.
I closed my eyes, and felt the wish as truly as I could above all others, though I had to push aside the bell tower and Pietro’s firm hands on my buttocks pressing me against him. I blew the dandelion, and thought, God still allowed me to take my next breath, yes. Wind did not blow us off the tower. These things should have made me feel cared for, but they didn’t.
When I opened my eyes, I saw a small ragged boy standing outside our courtyard gate.
“I have a message for Signora Gentileschi,” he said in a high-pitched voice taut with responsibility.
“I am Signora Gentileschi.” I reached my hand between the wooden slats, expecting a letter.
“It’s only here,” the boy said, and pointed to his mouth open in a perfect O. “I’m supposed to tell you to go to the Church of Santa Trinità and ask for Sister Veronica.”
“When?”
“Now.”
“Why? What else do you know?”
“Nothing, only Sister Veronica said for you to come alone.”
I thanked him and offered him a dipper of water through the slats of the gate.
“I want to go too.” Palmira flung herself backward against the gate.
“No, you’ll have to go to Fina.”
She stamped her foot. “I always have to go to Fina.” She mimicked my intonation, but allowed me to drag her upstairs.
The Church of Santa Trinità was up the Lungarno past the hide-tanning neighborhood. I tried not to breathe its rotten sharpness. I’d been to Santa Trinità once to see the enormous cross for Sister Paola’s sake. Now, when I opened the heavy door, I was happy to breathe the musky scent of wax and incense. A nun standing near the tray of candles greeted me and introduced herself as Sister Veronica.
“I am Artemisia Gentileschi.”
“May I show you the church?” she asked.
“Please.”
We walked down the nave. To the right of the high altar she drew me into a side chapel. “These frescoes illustrate the life of Saint Francis. They’re by Ghirlandaio.” From her wide sleeve she pulled out a tiny cloth drawstring bag. She lowered her voice. “Sister Graziela of Santa Trinità in Rome sent this hidden in a shipment of dried herbs. Her note instructed me to give it to you, with apologies if it smells like oregano.”
I smiled and held it to my nose. “Yes, oregano, and rosemary too.” I slipped it up my sleeve.
“And here in this panel you see Saint Francis performing a miracle, restoring a dead child after he fell from an upper story. Right here in Piazza Santa Trinità.”
“Oh, yes. I recognize the church façade there in the painting.”
We made a circuit of the church and at the door I thanked her and passed her a lira. “For your order.”
She bowed her head in thanks.
At home I untied the string and tipped out the earring—Graziela’s pearl drop. On a scrap of paper edged with Graziela’s leafy tendrils were the words, “Sell the pair. Buy paint.”
A warm wave passed through me. I touched the earring to my lips and closed my eyes, sure that I had never understood love till now.
Some weeks later, just when I thought I’d have to appeal to Pietro for money—I couldn’t bear to sell Graziela’s earrings—I received a letter from a Genoese merchant, Cesare Gentile. I tore it open eagerly. He had seen my work at the Pitti, he said, and was interested in having me do a large painting of one figure, a female nude, the identity to be decided upon my arrival in Genoa. He offered me a moderate sum, a room and studio in his palace, and possible further commissions if my first pleased him. A cry and a sigh escaped me.
Ce-sa-re, imperial and grand. Gen-ti-le, kindly and tender. His name seemed a good sign.
“Grazie a Dio! Palmira, we are saved.” I grabbed Palmira’s hands, leaned back, and we swung together in a circle until her little feet lifted off the floor and she squealed.
“What about Papa?” she asked.
“Pietro can come too, if he wants.”
But it was my own papa her question reminded me of. Father was in Genoa. Writing to him occasionally was one thing. Living in the same city was another. How could I act as though nothing had happened between us—especially in front of Palmira?
I’d have to try.
I looked up and saw behind her my unfinished drawing from the loggia, the Sabine woman celebrated at the moment she was being raped. Just like Rome, Florence was a man’s city, made of stone by men like Lorenzo il magnifico and Brunelleschi, with reputations as solid as stone. Stone that was cold right through your shoes in winter, blazing hot in summer. The only woman they liked was the pathetic, penitent Magdalen. This was not a city kind to women.
Maybe Genoa would be different.
Genoa didn’t have Pietro.
Neither did I.
17
Pietro
Your reputation is spreading,” Pietro said archly, after I showed him the letter from Genoa. There was a tautness to his lips which I took to mean artistic jealousy, until he added, “Naturally a nude. It’s what you do best.”
It wasn’t art he meant.
Apparently those false rumors had reached him too. Unless, of course, that was where they began. The thought shocked me until I considered it. He’d never forgiven me for being admitted to the academy before him, never gotten over the sting of my success before his. Were the rumors a calculated attempt to win commissions away from me? To regain his stature as an artist and a man? Was he capable of that? I looked into his darting eyes.
Yes.
If the rumor hadn’t begun with him, he would surely have confronted me with it more forcefully than with this feigned innuendo. Any man would. All he’d have had to do was to suggest the rumor to Vanna, and she’d have made sure it spread through the academy.
He tossed the letter onto the table in front of me as if it were worthless.
“I have no choice but to accept,” I said flatly.
He scowled. His two-day growth of whiskers darkened his face and made him look fierce and haggard. “Choice?” He raised his voice. “You are my wife.”
I sat up straight. “I am a painter first.”
“A painter first?” He took off his doublet and flung it against a chair.
“Listen to me, Pietro.” I leaned forward and spread out my fingers on the table. “We will both bow equally at God’s feet on our day of judgment, and if either of us hides our talents, we deny God the full expression of Himself.”
“Where’d you learn that? From your Roman nuns?”
“From the Magnificat. ‘My soul doth magnify the Lord.’ That’s for all of us, Pietro. No matter how small, I am going to add my piece to the mosaic of the world’s art. Just like you are.”
“A painter first.” He sneered and walked to the sink and rinsed his face.
“All my life I have wanted to be both. And I have been both. I’m not a failure at either—no matter what Vanna says.”
He swirled around. “Vanna!”
I laughed bitterly. “You think I don’t know? You think I’m so lost in painting and Palmira that I don’t notice you being gone? My heart cracks a little every night I blow out the lamp alone. Count the number of times and you’ll see a heart in shreds.”
“Vanna’s Vanna, but you’re my wife.”
I leaned forward. “How long, Pietro? How long do I wait until you notice the difference between us?”
“Dio mio! Don’t twist things to make it seem that I’ve left you. You’re the one leaving,” he added petulantly.
“Has there been any goodness in our marriage, for you?” I asked softly. “What did that mean in the tower, Pietro?”
He jerked his shoulders as if shaking away flies.
I held the letter from Genoa over Mother’s oil lamp, high enough so it made smoke but didn’t catch fire.
“If what we felt in that to
wer meant something to you, then I’ll let this letter burn and never count the loss.”
He looked furtively at my hot, trembling hand.
“Tell me, Pietro. What did it mean?”
His mouth stretched to one side as it always did when he didn’t know what to say.
“Nothing? Was it nothing that made you get drenched in a storm? Nothing that made you climb halfway to Heaven on a whim of mine? Nothing when you covered my throat with kisses, pressed your hardness against me next to God’s own dome?”
For one fraction of a second, he looked me in the eye.
He couldn’t say.
I set the letter down.
“To me it meant possibility. It meant a discovery of love laid right in our hands. In our grasp, Pietro.” I balled up my fist. “Right under this roof. Was it so with you, even for a moment?”
His shoulders lifted but no words came.
“It’s not that you want me to stay then. It’s only that you’re hurt that your wife is leaving. There’s a difference, you know.”
“Don’t quibble, Artemisia.” He yanked a chair back from the table and sat.
“If there has been . . . any good at all . . . then come with me.”
He snorted his mockery of the idea. I knew what repelled him—the humiliation of his wife having a wealthy patron when he didn’t.
“You can come later if you don’t want to come now.” I put my hand on his arm. It tensed under my fingers.
He stared at my painting cabinet. “I can prevent you from going, you know.”
“For what purpose, Pietro? If that bell tower and that night meant nothing to you, we are not husband and wife beyond a document of convenience.”
His fingers traced the body of Artemis on my mother’s oil lamp. He noticed me watching.
“Take it. It’s yours,” he said.
He stood up, walked to the wall, straightened a painting of his, walked to the opposite wall. He took one long breath, let it out in one great gush. And then he picked up his doublet and left. Not angry, not with door slamming or extravagant gesture, just a slow, old man’s movement toward the door. He stood with his hand on the latch a moment, pushed open the door, and looked at the threshold. He was there, and then he wasn’t. My last brief look at him showed a handsome, tormented man weighted down by secret obligations.
I didn’t cry. My heart ached, but I didn’t cry. There was too much to do. I packed all night, and left him Gentile’s address sticking out of a drawer in my beautiful painting cabinet.
In the morning, Palmira was bewildered. “Is Papa coming too?”
I drew her head to my body. “I hope so. Someday.”
He stayed away until after the coach collected us and our belongings, but I saw him standing alone in the Loggia della Signoria to watch us pass.
He was not a monster, only a man imperfect and unwise. Human.
18
Cleopatra
Mama, take the string,” Palmira said, thrusting the cat’s cradle at me.
“I’d rather look out the window right now.” “Please, Mama.”
“All right. Just once.” I pinched the strings where they crossed, raised them over the sides of the square, and stretched the loop into another pattern held taut around the base of my fingers. I shuddered. It reminded me of the sibille. Holding out her perfect little fingers, Palmira daintily performed the next move. Where had she learned such a horrid game?
“Take it, Mama,” she said, standing up now between the men and me in the coach. She was bored. To her, the ride was tedious and long, and the motion of the coach with its unexpected sideways lurches made her feel sick, and so she was contrary. I offered her bread to settle her stomach but she shook her head. The Tuscan countryside held no fascination for her, but for me, the moving landscape framed by the coach window made me melancholy that I was leaving it.
That morning riding through Florence, I had craned my neck to get a last glimpse of Giotto’s bell tower, the one feature above all others that proclaimed, Florence, City of Possibilities! The thought made me ache. Riding along Corso dei Tintori for the last time, I had tried to imprint on my memory the brilliant silks hanging from upper windows. Umiliana was not at her vat. That was good. The city might still hold some possibility for her. Now, as we passed ochre and apricot-colored villas adorned with oleander, golden-leafed vineyards with mulberry trees among the vines, plum and pear and persimmon orchards, I felt as though I was being expelled from a Tuscan Eden.
“Take it.” Palmira’s voice crackled with impatience.
“No.”
She loosened her fingers from the pattern made by the string and threw it at me. It caught on my bodice button and I picked it off and wound it up.
“Why do you have those little lines on your fingers, Mama? I don’t have any. Is it because you’re old?”
I glanced across the coach at the men who were now looking at my hands. “Yes, I guess that’s why. I’m old now.” Maybe that’s what lost love had done to me, made me old overnight.
Palmira flopped down next to me and one of the men smiled at her. “They don’t have any,” she said.
“Maybe they’re not as old as I am.” They laughed and Palmira looked from them to me, snapping her head back and forth, trying to figure out who was older.
“Look, we’re passing a town. See that fortress on the hill?”
“It’s dumb to have all the towns on hills,” Palmira said.
“Maybe it’s so they can see who’s coming. Or to save flatter land to grow things where the rivers are.”
Palmira screwed up her nose in derision.
“Once there was a village named Pocopaglia and it was built on a hillside so steep that the people tied sacks under the tails of their hens so the eggs wouldn’t roll downhill.”
Palmira put her hands on her hips, knowing she was being teased, and leveled at me an exasperated look. “It’s still dumb.”
I shrugged. “Maybe they just wanted to enjoy the view.”
One of the men stuck out his thick bottom lip as if to say, “Could be.” “You are a brave woman to make such a trip alone.” His voice scraped with condescension.
“With your inquisitive child,” the other man corrected.
I decided to take it as a compliment rather than an insinuation of impropriety. “Not by choice, but to seek employment.”
“Employment?”
The question was weighted with suspicion. Genoa was a port city, so there was plenty of night employment for women on the docks. I couldn’t let them think I meant that.
“As a painter. I am a painter. I have a new patron in Genoa. I imagine it’s a lovely city, always with an ocean breeze.”
Over the course of the day’s long journey, the men unknowingly taught me a great deal—to divert a conversation, to give thin, mysterious answers about my private life, to make it clear that I had a husband, and then to close that slit of conversation by alluding to his absence as if it were a demise.
It pained me to speak of him that way, as if by doing so I had killed any chance of resurrecting what at first seemed possible. Already I wished I had been more importunate about him coming with us.
I didn’t tell the men my name. The Genoese were a talkative lot. “A Genoese, therefore a trader,” was the saying, and they traded information as willingly as they traded bales and crates. I wanted to get established before news of my arrival reached Father.
How different my life was now than the last time I took a coach trip, when Father at the coach door had shaken his hands in agitation and said, “Get in. Get in.” That one moment from the whole day was as clear to me now as if it were painted and hanging in a frame. I suddenly realized that I wasn’t sure if he thought me innocent. Impatience was not his usual manner. Maybe Tuzia’s suggestions had worked on him and made him suspicious. Maybe, behind his efforts to marry me off in a different city, he wanted to be rid of what had stained his reputation.
On the third day, we came into Genoa. Pa
lmira stood up in the coach with her head out the window as we passed white villas looking clean and hopeful surrounded by terraced green hills facing the sea. “Look!” she kept saying, which was precisely what I was doing too.
Sea air blew deep into my lungs, refreshing me from the long ride. In a semicircular bay, ships of all sorts—galleons, trading vessels, and stout men-of-war with tall masts—lay at anchor. Crooked streets created an incomprehensible tangle amid hills and sun-washed palaces in bright terra-cotta colors.
Palmira quivered with excitement. “Which palace will we live in, Mama? Which one?”
“The Palazzo Cattaneo-Adorno on the Piazza de Banchi,” I told the coachman. When the coach stopped, Palmira slumped back in her seat. It wasn’t nearly as grand from the outside as Palazzo D’Oria or Palazzo Bianco, which we had passed on the way.
“You are to be polite and grateful, no matter what,” I told her.
A porter ushered us into the great hall lined with carved and inlaid furniture bearing an array of fanciful objects. Two ewers in lapis lazuli in the shapes of birds caught my eye, but Palmira waved me over to a funny rock crystal fish with gaping mouth and enormous bulging green eyes, and fins and tails edged in silver. On the walls, there were only a few unremarkable paintings.
A round-bellied man in mustard-colored brocade dressing gown came toward us holding out both his arms. “I am Cesare Gentile. You are welcome in our home. Artists are honored persons in this household.” A huge, loose-jowled smile widened his face and doubled his chin.
He tapped Palmira on the shoulder with a flick of a chubby, rubied hand. “Two artists? Two? Che splendido.” With his eyebrows lifted and arched and his lips pinched together in mock seriousness, he gave an exaggerated, humorous bow to Palmira. A tall, graceful woman came into the room. “Santo cielo! Bianca, che prodigioso,” he said. “I didn’t realize I was getting two painters for the price of one!”