The Invitation(76)

Several times, he has asked to see the painting. But the painter refuses. ‘It might affect the rest of the work,’ he says. ‘I must be allowed to create without the weight of another’s opinion informing me of how to proceed.’

The captain would like to say that, as he is the one paying for the painting, it perhaps shouldn’t matter if his opinion informs it. But he knows little of the artistic process, and doesn’t want to jeopardize it. He must continue, instead, to be content with looking at the subject herself in the snatched time permitted between sittings for the portrait and the hours she spends resting in her chamber.

Finally, the artist informs the captain, the unveiling is ready to occur. The painting is finished. The captain is almost beside himself with excitement. He has already instructed a master framer to get ready a gilt frame for the dimensions of the canvas: it will be on his wall in a matter of days. He enters the salon where the painter and Luna wait for him.

He waits with breath held as the artist draws back the curtain of material shielding the image from view. The scent of the oil – rich, resinous – reaches him before the painting is exposed, and he closes his eyes to better appreciate it.

When he opens his eyes, it is before him. There she is in all her loveliness – as lovely, if not more so, as the woman who sits beside the canvas. It is a work of brilliance: some source of light appearing to shine from within it, illuminating the bones of the face, the whites of the eyes, casting the shadow of long dark lashes upon her cheeks.

But something is wrong. He cannot understand it at first. It is not the image itself, so much as the feeling that emanates from it. Confused, he glances back at the painter and the girl, just in time to see a look, quick as a shift of the light, pass between them. And in that look is all the answer he needs.

He lunges for the girl. ‘Puttana!’ His hands find her upper arms, he drags her from the seat onto the floor.

The painter grapples with him, but the man is slight, small-boned, and shaken off easily.

‘Is it true?’ he shouts at the girl. ‘You would let him seduce you, and not me?’

She will not answer him, even as his fingers dig into the flesh of her upper arms.

There is a growl, and then the beast of a dog is hurtling toward him, teeth bared. The weight of it knocks him to his feet, and its claws rip quickly through the silk of his shirt, scouring the tender skin beneath. The creature’s breath, hot and foul, is in his nostrils. The thing will consume him, he thinks – and he shrieks in fear and pain. There is a pause, long enough for the dog to reveal its rows of crooked teeth. And then it is clambering off him, with evident reluctance, and trotting to its mistress’ heels. She has called it off.

He has never known such humiliation, and such rage. She has betrayed him, utterly. She needs to be taught a lesson that she will not forget. There is only one place he can think of going.

‘Father,’ he tells the priest. ‘I have been bewitched. I am ashamed to say it, but I have allowed myself to be seduced by one who follows the way of Diana.’

The whole story is told. The first encounter, the storms, the remedies – her strange bond with the dog.

The priest listens, intent. And then he speaks. ‘My son. We live now in a more enlightened age. At least in the Republic of Genoa. We are no longer in the practice of rounding such women up and murdering them. Of course, there are people who choose to take matters into their own hands. And I would not necessarily judge them. There are villages where whole crops have failed because of the work of such women, where all the infants have sickened and died. But the Church cannot sanction such extreme measures. My advice would be to distance yourself as far from her as possible.’

‘I can’t.’

‘Excuse me?’ The priest frowns. ‘She is keeping you imprisoned in some way? But you are free to visit me here.’

‘I mean that I can’t leave her. This is what I mean when I say that she has bewitched me.’

‘Ah,’ the priest says, with something almost like a smile. ‘But this sort of attachment can occur without the work of witchcraft. We call it, then, an infatuation.’

‘Father. I can’t sleep. I can’t think of anything else.’

The priest steeples his hands. ‘My advice, my son, would be to take yourself away from the problem. Your mother’s family has lodgings near the hamlet of Cervo, I think?’

The captain nods.

‘Go there. Eat good food, drink wine, feel the sun on your face, swim in the sea. I know the priest there. I will send a letter with you, so that he may understand your predicament, and guide you.’

The captain leaves strict instructions with the housekeeper not to allow the girl to go anywhere unchaperoned. As an afterthought, he goes, too, to the studio of the painter.

‘I want you to make my likeness too.’ He names a sum.

‘Of course. Shall I come to your house tomorrow, to begin?’

‘No. You are to come with me to my residence near Cervo.’

He sees the man’s hesitation: and in this is all the proof he would need, if he did not have it already. For a poor painter to be reluctant to take such a lucrative commission shows the tie upon the man must be strong indeed. But, in the end, the money is enough: the man accedes.

The weather is fine in Cervo. But the captain can no longer appreciate the warmth of the sun on his skin: he feels cold, all the time. His nights are sleepless, and his appetite does not return. His days are spent sitting for the painter, and visiting the priest in his coral church, praying only half-heartedly for freedom from her. For this is perhaps the most insidious effect of the sickness: he does not truly want to be rid of it.