The Mirror Thief(73)
She’s watching from outside the hedges, her face veiled, her nervous fingers bunched before her. Crivano comes to his feet, removes his cap, and stares evenly at her until she joins him. They sit for a while in uneasy silence. She’s older than he thought; probably past twenty. Something about her reminds him of Cyprus, although he can’t say what. Who are you? he asks.
I’m called Perina, she says. I am Senator Contarini’s cousin.
Who is your father?
My parents are not living. I never knew my father. I grew up in this house.
Bells ring the hour all over the city: a bright throbbing drone, like the sound of heavy rain on a roof. Crivano’s hands have begun to tremble; he clamps them on his knees to still them. So, he says, you’re a nun.
She makes a sour face. I’m an educant, she says. At the convent school of Santa Caterina. I have taken no vows.
They must expect that you will do so. Or you would not have liberty to come and go as you please.
Through the years, Perina says, the sisters of Santa Caterina have benefited greatly from the bequests of the Contarini family. This conveys advantages.
I see.
Near the banquet table, a child charging blind beneath his enormous bronze helmet has collided with the trunk of an almond tree. He lands on his back in the grass; his helmet clatters away. After a moment he sits up and begins to wail. Crivano smiles.
I am told, Perina says, that you fought the Turks at Lepanto. Is this true?
Other boys are laughing at the sobbing child. An older girl shushes them, stoops to tend his bloodied nose. You fought the Turks at Lepanto, Crivano thinks. Not simply: You fought at Lepanto. An interesting specificity. Yes, Crivano says. It is true.
I should like very much to hear about your role in the battle, Dottore Crivano, if you are willing to speak of it.
A flurry of black-and-yellow tits flaps into view over the roof, hunting treetops for cankerworms. They weave and dive acrobatically over the children’s heads, paying them no mind, and are paid no mind in return.
That was very long ago, Crivano says, and I fear the passage of years has put my memories at some variance. No doubt you have read them already, but I must say you’ll be better served by the famous accounts previously set down by veterans of the battle, if only because those men took up their quills so soon after laying down their swords.
Of course, Perina says. Still, I am greatly interested in the particularities of your experience. If you can bring yourself to share them with me, I would be grateful.
You would even, Crivano continues, find more clarity and better understanding in the writings of recent historians of the Republic who were not there, who have never been to war at all, who have no direct knowledge of any territory save that of their studious libraries. The ultimate import of such an event, lady, can least be discerned in the unformed chaos of its midst. My memories of Lepanto are spun mostly from smoke, and noise, and the dead and dying bodies of men. I am sure that many brave acts occurred on that grave day, but I took part in none, nor did I witness any. For myself and my fellows it amounted to a long inglorious clamber to keep our lives, one our majority prosecuted without success. Do not lament the loss of such chronicles, lady. And do not believe that the stories of these fallen men are interred with them. They are in fact the very soil that vanishes their bones.
By the time Crivano has finished speaking, his own voice sounds distant, as if reaching him from a nearby room. His vision has tunneled to exclude all but fragments of the girl: her folded hands, her powdered breasts, her veiled face.
But don’t you see, dottore? the girl says, and grips his forearm with a steady hand. It is precisely this chaos, precisely this derangement, that I seek knowledge of!
He can’t be certain through the veil, but it looks as if her eyes are bright with tears. Aware of her cool fingers on his wrist and of a sudden lurching grind in his belly, he shuts his own eyes and clenches his jaw. Why? he asks.
Her fingers uncurl; he feels her shift on the bench. Because, she says, I have come to believe that in such disarray resides the truth.
The tits flutter overhead. Eee-cha, they say. Eee-cha, eee-cha.
My sincerest apologies, Crivano says. I wish to continue this discussion, lady, and I have no desire to be rude, but is there by chance a nearby privy to which you can direct me? I fear that I have become ill.
The girl is on her feet, agitated, tugging his arm; he permits her to lead him into the back half of the palace, down a long corridor. From among her apologies and offers of aid and expressions of concern he gleans directions to the privy, and hurriedly takes his leave.
He’s able to avoid soiling himself, but only narrowly. With his citizen’s robe hung on a peg, his hose around his boot-tops, he sits over the aperture in the worn wood and rests his head on the brick wall and voids himself, sweating and shivering by turns. He feels restored almost instantly, and then foolish, and then, as he’s tidying up, he’s struck by the sudden desire to simply remain forever in this small reeking room, hiding from the eyes of others, estranged even from his own machinations. He draws long breaths and closes his eyes and imagines himself as a pupa, secreted in the fecund soil while the busy insect world swarms on around him.
When at last he emerges the girl has gone, but young Marco Contarini is standing in the hallway. Are you well enough to see my father, dottore? he asks. He had hoped for a few minutes of your time.
29