I asked him how he dealt with that.
‘I prayed,’ he said. ‘She hated that too. She mocked my piety. She would drop to her knees and put her hands together and lift her eyes heavenward and start talking a lot of mumbo-jumbo — or perhaps it was French that she was talking …’
He laughed quietly, and I laughed with him, but then a silence fell between us. Some minutes passed. Eventually, I heard a snort, and then a rumble. He had fallen asleep, his half-open mouth perilously close to the surface of the water. I went and alerted Schwarz.
Later, outside the Grand Duke’s apartment, I stood by a window that gave on to the courtyard at the back of the palace. The eastern sky was the colour of charcoal, daybreak still at least an hour away. I decided to call in at the stables. If I caught my work at odd moments — off guard, as it were — I could sometimes come up with unexpected solutions.
I set out across the gardens. Trees stirred drowsily; the air smelled of wet wood and something sweet but sharp, like wild strawberries. As I rounded a high, shaved hedge, I came across a man on a bench, his clothing dishevelled, his head flung back. Gian Gastone. Tears trickled sideways into his hair. I turned away, thinking to retrace my steps. Just then, his head lifted.
‘Spying on me again,’ he said.
He wiped his eyes, then foraged in the dark air beneath the bench and brought out a flagon of red wine. He raised it to his lips and drank.
‘You’re wasting your time. I don’t have any secrets.’ He set the wine back on the grass, then drew his sleeve smoothly across his dripping nose, reminding me of someone playing a violin. ‘You people. You never give up, do you?’
He yawned, then closed his eyes.
Before I moved away, I heard him murmur something about marriage, and a hideous German woman, and what a joke the whole thing was.
It was early morning by the time I reached my lodgings on Via del Corno. My eyes felt gritty, almost grazed, and the veins ached in my legs. I wanted nothing more than to sleep until nightfall, but I was brought up short by the sight of a bundle of rags dumped against the door of my room. As I approached, a hand emerged and scratched an ear. It was Fiore.
I asked her what she was doing there.
She sat up. ‘You never finished the story about your friend.’
I unlocked my door. Once inside, I sat her at my desk and gave her a piece of seed-cake and some acquerello. She laid her wax baby beside her and began to eat.
‘You remember I told you Pampolini’s in love with a woman who’s only got one eye?’ I said.
Mouth full of cake, Fiore nodded.
‘Know how I know?’
‘How?’
‘He’s bought himself a wig.’
Imported from Copenhagen at great expense, it was a subtle greenish-blond, and Pampolini put it on whenever he went to the one-eyed woman’s tavern. He was obviously trying to impress her.
Fiore had finished eating. ‘What took you so long, anyway?’
‘The Grand Duke wanted to talk to me.’
‘Doesn’t he have anyone else to talk to?’
‘Good question.’ I paused. ‘I think he likes the way I listen.’
She turned to the wall.
Though I was used to seeing her face empty of all expression, I still hadn’t worked out what lay behind it. Sometimes I thought she might be distancing herself from knowledge she found unpalatable or threatening. Other times it felt more serious, like an involuntary suspension of her faculties, a kind of switching-off.
‘What did he talk about?’ she asked eventually.
‘His wife, mostly.’
‘Does he love her?’
‘Yes, he loves her, but she’s gone.’
She looked at me again. ‘Did she die?’
‘No. She went back to France. That’s where she’s from.’
‘I think I heard that story,’ she said. ‘I suppose he’s sad.’
‘Yes, he’s sad. But she wasn’t very kind to him.’
Fiore sipped her acquerello.
‘She didn’t love him as much as he loved her,’ I went on. ‘People don’t always love each other the same amount, even when they’re married.’ In that moment, I saw Faustina as I had seen her last, her dress the colour of an olive leaf, and I felt the blood go rushing from my heart. I turned to Fiore. ‘Are you going to get married one day?’
Her face tilted up to mine, and she gave me a strange, stubborn look. ‘I’m going to marry you.’
‘I’m a bit old for you,’ I said gently, ‘aren’t I?’
‘That’s all right. I’ll be older soon.’
When I laughed, it startled her at first, but then she realized she must have said something clever, and she began to laugh as well.
On Friday I got to the Mercato Vecchio early. It was busy, as always, not just with stall-holders and their clientele, but with all manner of con-men, quacks and entertainers. I watched a cripple’s pet monkey juggling walnuts. Nearby was a dentist in a bloody apron, who delighted his audience by repeatedly pulling good teeth instead of rotten ones.
I had been waiting for a quarter of an hour when Faustina appeared. Stepping back into the shadow of a loggia, I sketched her as she wandered among the stalls, tasting olives and salted almonds. She had such a casual, spontaneous air about her that you never would have suspected she was meeting someone.
At last, I could resist no longer. I went up and touched her on the shoulder. She turned slowly.
‘Sorry I’m late,’ I said.
‘You weren’t late. You’ve been here all the time.’
‘How could you tell?’
‘I could feel it.’
‘I couldn’t believe I was the one you were waiting for. I felt really lucky.’
‘If you pay me too many compliments at the beginning,’ she said, ‘you might find yourself with nothing left to say.’
‘The beginning of what?’
Her face appeared to rock a little, like a boat disturbed by a wave that had come from nowhere.
‘And anyway,’ I said, ‘I disagree.’
‘Do you?’
I stared out over the rooftops. The pale-gold October light streamed down on to my face. My skin seemed to be absorbing it, soaking it up. Light could feel liquid.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I couldn’t disagree more.’ My face still felt illuminated, not just by the sky, but by a kind of candour, the fact that I was speaking the truth. ‘I’ll never run out of ways of telling you how beautiful you are.’
She linked her arm through mine, and we walked east, along the Corso. I remembered what Marvuglia had said as we sat in his kitchen. You don’t belong together. It doesn’t look right. What did he know?
‘By the way,’ I said. ‘I drew you.’
She asked if she could see. I took out my notebook and opened it. She stared at the image for a few long moments. ‘I look like that?’
‘To me you do.’
‘It’s lovely.’
In Piazza Santa Croce a crowd was gathering for a game of calcio. Music started up close by. There was a man hunched over a lute, his hand a blur. Another man blew on a set of pipes. A third hammered at a tall, barrel-shaped drum, his face transfixed, almost demonic. Faustina stood in front of me, and I watched over her shoulder, my face close to her hair. The three men were arranged in an arc around a dark-skinned woman who wore a leather waistcoat and an ankle-length bronze skirt. Her eyelids were painted with black dots, which made her eyes look caged. She sang in a guttural, agonized voice, her head angled sideways and downwards, her hands clapping in a rhythm I had never heard before. Leaning back against me, Faustina put her mouth next to my ear. They were Spanish, she said. They came through the city every year.