Zuana, meanwhile, is concentrating more on the girl’s body than her soul. She is thinking of how excessive fasting, especially when done too suddenly, can bring with it a strange intensity of self, which without proper supervision can become overwhelming; for such emptiness is a place where one can get lost as well as found. She is thinking also that while the penance officially ended three days ago, she has not seen the girl eat anything since. And she makes a note to try to change her place at the refectory table so that she can get a better view of her.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
ON THIS OF all visiting days, the abbess does not take any chances. She appoints two chaperone nuns to be present continually inside the parlatorio. This is not unusual—indeed, a single chaperone is convent custom, since any contact with the outside world must be monitored—but the rule, as with so many others in Santa Caterina, is implemented lightly and the nuns generally speak, laugh, and gossip with their relatives freely. Today, however, the presence of two overseers—both from within the abbess’s family faction—will determine the conversations: how in the unfolding drama of convent life, a holy sister has died and is much mourned, and though termites ate the wood of the great chapel crucifix, it proved an opportunity for the convent to be blessed by God rather than criticized by Him. Added to that there is the news, come that very morning, that the crucifix, now removed from the chapel, will be repaired and remounted in a few weeks, in time for Palm Sunday.
That same morning, Zuana is in the dispensary working when she receives a visit from Suora Ysbeta, distraught and cradling a silk-wrapped bundle, the snub nose and gummy half-closed eyes of a small dog just visible at one end of the swaddling.
“He is sick, Suora Zuana. Very sick. Will you look at him?”
There is no point in telling her that the dispensary is a place for nuns, not animals. Ysbeta is a pure enough soul, compassionate and devout. In another world she might have been a follower of a stricter regime, only her love of animals is almost as great as her love of people and in a convent where she could not keep a pet she would surely wither and die. As the dog is doing now.
Zuana places the bundle on the worktop and carefully unwraps the silk. The smell tells her much of what she needs to know. The animal is rank with sickness, its little body trembling, its coat, usually so sleek and groomed, matted and dull. She moves her hand carefully along the line of its stomach and soon locates a hard swelling near the groin. The dog whines and makes a feeble attempt to snap, but there is no fight there anymore.
“He has not been himself for a while. Not since the Feast of Saint Agnes. But it is only in the last few days …Can you help him?”
“I am afraid he is beyond my help. There is a growth, a tumor here. Probably not the only one. It will be sapping his strength and causing him pain.”
“Ah, I knew it. Even the pets are sick here.”
Zuana says nothing. She strokes the dog gently. It bares its teeth a little, then gives up and drops its head heavily on her hand.
“Surely God would not punish us so.”
“What do you mean, sister?”
“Felicità says there is a convent in Siena where the inspectors took away the sisters’ dogs and drowned them in a sack in the river.”
Since the chapter meeting, the floodgates have opened on such stories.
“Oh, I can’t believe they would do such a thing.”
“I can. I think Suora Felicità herself would do it if she could. Last week in the cloisters she kicked him.”
“I’m sure she did not mean to.”
Ysbeta will have none of this, either. “Oh, yes, she did.” She nods her head vigorously. “They are so pleased with themselves, she and Suora Umiliana. Just because they can live without comfort they think everyone else must be the same.”
Zuana has never seen Ysbeta so passionate before. “Well, a kick did not cause this. Nor do I think it punishment for any sin. The fact is that the tumor will have been growing in his body for some time now.”
She stares down at the little animal. “So you cannot do anything?”
“I could give him something to make him sleep, so he would not feel it so much.”
“What about the girl? Might she save him?”
“Which girl?”
“The novice, Serafina.” She hesitates. “I …they are saying that Suora Magdalena passed her powers on to her when she died. That was why the cross did not fall on her and why she fainted afterward.”
Indeed? Is that what they are saying? Zuana thinks. What kind of spy am I if I do not hear even the noisiest rustles in the grass?
“Who is saying such a thing?”
She shrugs. “Oh, some of the choir nuns …Would you ask her? I mean—she is close to you.”
Zuana smiles gently. “Suora Ysbeta, I am sorry, but there is nothing she or any of us can do. Your dog is dying. It is the way of nature.”
The old nun bows her head, nodding slightly. She moves to the worktop and, tender as a mother with an ailing child, starts wrapping up the shaking body again, taking care not to touch the animal’s stomach as she does so. Zuana stares at her. Christ dolls, pets, babies in the parlatorio …some women find the barrenness of marriage to God so hard to bear.
She reaches for the poppy syrup.
SHE IS THINKING of the dog and how the convent has grown restless inside the winds of gossip as she sits at her dispensary desk that same afternoon, marking down the remedies and essences that need replacing, when the knock comes at the door.
“Suora Zuana, the watch sister has sent me.” Letizia, bright and efficient as always. “There is someone to see you in the parlatorio.”
“To see me?”
“Yes. The watch sister says it is the wife of one of your father’s pupils whom you have met before. Her husband is very ill, and she is come to ask you to pray for him.”
Zuana frowns. At the beginning she received a few visits from people who had known her father, women from the court whose children or husbands he had healed, but it has been many years since anyone bothered to look her up and she has no memory of such a woman. Falling crucifixes, ailing dogs, and dying living saints. And now a visitor for a nun who knows no one. These are strange times indeed.
Inside, the parlatorio is humming. While not as ornately decorated as for Carnival, it is still welcoming. Someone has cut a few green fronds and placed them in a vase on a table in the middle, and many of the separate groups have ceramic plates of biscuits and jugs of wine and water for the visitors to eat and drink. There must be close to twenty nuns (not counting the chaperones) entertaining, some with only a few guests, others with what seem like whole families gathered around. The noise level is high, partly because of the children, of whom there are maybe half a dozen: two babies and the rest toddlers, climbing onto the nuns’ laps and playing with their crosses or tottering around the room clutching sticky biscuits.
Zuana’s visitor is sitting on her own close to the wall. She is a middle-aged woman, modestly dressed and a little self-conscious in such surroundings. Clearly she is not of noble birth, but she has made an effort with her clothes, with clean shoes and her hair up as befits her married status, and a simple but stylish veil pinned at the back and falling to her shoulders. Zuana has never seen her before.
“Hello, I am Suora Zuana.”
“Oh, it is a pleasure—” She starts to rise and holds out a hand as if unsure of the correct greeting for a noble nun.
“Please, don’t get up. Forgive me, but do we know each other?”
“I …no.”
“But you are the wife of one of my father’s pupils?”
“Yes. Well, in a manner of speaking.”
“You are sure I am the one you are looking for?”
“Oh, yes, if you are Suora Zuana… My husband did know your father. We keep an apothecary store near the west gate of the city, in Via Apollonia. When he was a boy he met your father often when he used to come in. He said he was a wonderful man.”
The woman is nervous. She smiles. It is a good smile: one that crinkles her eyes and, without the restriction of a wimple, lights up her face.
“So, how can I help you? He is ill, I hear?”
She takes a breath. “There is illness, yes. But I am come on behalf of a gentleman.”
“Not your husband?”
“No, my husband—oh, it’s not what you think. My husband knows I am here. This gentleman—he has been a patient. My husband found him. He was injured, badly injured. We helped him. Without our help he would have died.”
While she is nervous, she is also determined. By rights, Zuana should not be listening further, for there is no connection here to justify the visit, but there is something about the woman that she likes. Or maybe it is the novelty of being here in this room, with a hubbub of people around her, as if it were not a convent at all but a receiving room in some great house where people gather to enjoy ordinary life. The chaperone nuns are moving between the groups. One of them looks over at Zuana; it is unusual to have the dispensary sister here. Zuana smiles and nods at her. She smiles back and moves on.
“Perhaps you should tell me what happened,” she says to the woman.
“Yes, yes, thank you. Some weeks ago my husband was coming back into the city from collecting plants in the country. His horse had gone lame and he had had to walk the last miles, so it was late at night. He heard shouting on the riverbank, and when he approached he disturbed an attack. Some men ran away but there was another on the ground. He had been stabbed and they had tried to cut his throat. My husband stopped the blood as best he could—they had not severed any vital artery—and brought him back to the house. For many days we thought he might die, for he had bled a great deal, but my husband used case wort and yarrow on the wounds and he began to recover.”
“You help your husband with his work?”
The woman blushes. “Yes. A little. We have no children; I was not able, so—well, it is cheaper than an assistant.”
“You like it?”
She gives a little laugh. “Yes. Yes, I do.”
Zuana nods. Father, husband, even sister. Someone to talk to. Someone who is as interested as you are. It is all she has ever really wanted.
“And what is it about this story that has brought you here to me?” she asks gently.
“The young man told us that the men who tried to kill him had been his friends, people he had met when he came to the city, for he is a stranger here.”
“Then why did they try to kill him?”
“He didn’t know. My husband said he must go to the city watch, for he could recognize his attackers. But he said it would be no use as they were from noble families and he would not get justice.”
Zuana can feel the cold moving through her. “Did this young man tell you his name?”
“Yes. Jacopo Bracciolini. He is a singer. Well, I don’t know if he still will be with his face and throat slashed, but he taught singing in Milan.”
Zuana shakes her head. She must get up now and walk away.
“Did he send you here?” she says, more sharply.
“No. When I heard his story I offered to come. He is a good man and he nearly died.” She pauses. “He has written a letter, which he asked me to deliver to you. It is for a young nun, a novice called—”
“I do not want to know who it is for. I don’t know this man and I cannot take anything from him.” She is standing now. “The novice has taken vows and will soon take others, and she is not allowed to receive letters.”
She spots the chaperone across the room looking over at them. The intensity of the conversation has attracted her attention. Zuana sits again and drops her eyes.
“But rest assured I will pray for his full recovery” she says more calmly. “And thank you for coming.”
“Please. Please.” The woman’s voice is low but clear. “It is difficult, I know, but this is a good man. I have spent weeks caring for him. He is not asking anything, only to say goodbye. He is going away and wants to wish her well. He will not bother her again.”
Zuana is shaking her head but it is partly to keep the woman’s voice out of her ears. There is great conviction in the way she speaks. If she was nursing you, you would surely be comforted by her strength as well as her gentleness. Or perhaps this love story has touched her heart. Certainly she would have reason to value love, for without the fondness of her husband a barren woman is easy enough to shrug off in favor of another.
“Have you read it?”
“No. But he is a good man, I swear.”
Now the chaperone has come up to them.
“How are you, dear sister?”
Zuana smiles. “Oh, very well, thank you, Suora Elena. Well, except for this sad news. This is Signora …Vesalio. Her husband was one of my father’s most talented students at the university. He is very sick and she has come to me for advice. But more than any remedy, I think, we must all pray for him.”
The sister stares at the woman, reading the humility in her dress as well as her face. “Rest assured, good woman, we shall add him to our prayers,” she says, smiling, and moves away.
Zuana keeps her head down, as if she is indeed in prayer. Opposite her, the woman holds her hands loosely clasped in her skirts. Under her palms Zuana sees the edge of the folded paper.
“Why me? Why do you come to me?”
“Because he said you were a kind and good nun.”
“He does not know me.”
“He seems to. And he was right. You are …kind and good. I wish I had known your father…” She trails off.
Zuana stares at her for a moment. Later she wonders when she made up her mind. Or perhaps she never did. Perhaps it was only her body that took the decision.
She moves her hands across the divide of their laps until they cover the woman’s own. She is pleased to note that their fingers are equally stained.
“Dear God, look down on Your servants here and help this young man back to health so that he may use his voice to praise You.” As Zuana says the words, the woman releases her grip on the letter and she takes it within her own fingers and holds it there.
“Amen.”
“Amen.”
Zuana pulls her hands back and folds her skirts around them. “You had better go now,” she says quietly.
“Thank you.”
The woman stands and moves swiftly away.
“Oh …Signora Vesalio.”
The woman turns.
“Tell your husband to try honey and cobwebs mixed with white of egg on the neck and face wounds. It will help to salve the scarring.”
Zuana does not immediately leave but sits, her hands folded over the letter, looking out over the room. She watches Suora Perseveranza, her body held upright to compensate for the belt around her middle, in animated conversation with a well-dressed married woman of similar age and features. At her feet a child, a sweet little girl with a mass of fair curls, is balanced against her knees, her mouth grubby with biscuit crumbs, her hand picking at the wooden rosary beads that hang from her aunt’s hips. How old is she, three? Four? Already too pretty to be the next nun of the family. But there is time yet. Come an attack of the pox or some disfiguring accident, or even a gradually perceived slowness of mind …
Zuana slips the letter up inside her wide sleeves and leaves the room and the sound of laughter behind her.