Casanova's Secret Wife Read online

  CHAPTER 6

  “He did not.”

  “Yes. He did.”

  “Your brother made love to a woman with you in the same room?” My cousin Zulietta’s small, rosy mouth hung open at my news. She looked like a fish, which caused me to giggle.

  “It’s not funny, Caterina. It’s—horrible!” Zulietta picked up the red chalk she had been using to sketch a bouquet of lilies we had cut from the garden. We sat in the pòrtego of my house, near the windows for good light.

  “Yes—it is horrible. But don’t you see how considerate Giacomo was toward me? He shielded my view of them!”

  “Simply because Pier Antonio is black does not make Signor Casanova white,” she said, setting down the chalk.

  I scowled. Zulietta was my cousin, and my closest friend. But she was sixteen, and believed that those two extra years gave her the right to guide me in the world.

  “Why are you behaving like this, Caterina?” She looked at me worriedly, soft shadows beneath her dark honey–colored eyes. A few ringlets of her auburn hair, carefully curled, framed her heart-shaped face.

  “Like what?”

  “You are being disobedient. You know perfectly well what is planned for your future.” She smoothed her red and pink rose–embroidered skirt, making sure not one thread was out of place. “One day, you will marry a successful merchant and lead an honorable, comfortable life.”

  “That may be true—but in the meantime, I’m playing a little.” I winked at her, but she was not amused.

  Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Why risk doing this behind your father’s back? I’m sure he will . . . he will choose someone well-suited to you when the time comes.” But she lowered her eyes when she said this last part, as if she did not entirely believe it herself.

  “‘Well-suited’ to me?” I snapped. “I bet he will choose some old man and I will be miserable.” How trapped I felt! By my father—and now, even by Zulietta.

  Zulietta smiled at me sadly. I think she understood why I was fighting back. Neither of us liked my father much. In fact, we were terrified of him. When we were children, whenever we heard his footsteps coming up the stairs, we would hide in an empty linen chest.

  “Giacomo is a perfect choice,” I continued, sensing Zulietta’s mood had changed. “He is courteous, and kind—”

  “And handsome,” Zulietta broke in, shaking her head, but I saw she was fighting a smile.

  “And handsome!” I chirped happily. I picked up a sofa pillow and hugged it tightly.

  Zulietta went back to her drawing. Her style was meticulous: Every detail had to be captured and set down correctly on her paper.

  “Be careful, Caterina,” she said after a few minutes. “I do worry—what Signor Casanova might be expecting from you.”

  “I will be fine.” I said it quickly and without thinking. I was on a new path, heading into a new land. No one was going to hold me back. Not even the cousin and friend who loved me most.

  CHAPTER 7

  Night. I was sure I heard my name being called beneath my bedroom window. Running to check, I saw no one. I tiptoed barefoot down the two flights of cold stone steps and out into the garden. I didn’t need a lantern, because the moon was full. It was huge, hanging in the sky.

  At the far edge of the garden was a back door we had not used in years. It was overgrown with leaves and vines. In the moonlight, half-hidden, I spied a folded piece of cream paper poking through a crack in the wood. I ran to retrieve it, plucking it out eagerly. Something sweet released its fragrance at my touch.

  Tucking my secret message into the folds of my nightgown, I raced back through the garden, up the steps, and back into my bedroom. I locked the door and began to read.

  My beautiful angel—your skin white like alabaster, your black eyes reflecting only sweetness, your curious and lively spirit—

  As promised, I have copied out something for you to read. It is a poem by Dante. It tells the story of a pilgrim, a wanderer. He is the poet, who travels down to hell and then up to paradise in a journey inspired by his muse, Beatrice.

  In this verse I’ve copied out for you, the poet finds two lovers wrapped in each other’s arms for eternity. Their names are Paolo and Francesca, and he asks them for the story of their early love. How did they recognize its first signs?

  But tell me, in the time of gentle sighs, with what, and in what way did Love allow you to recognize your still uncertain longings?

  Someday I will share the rest of the poem with you, and tell you about their fate together. But tonight, I simply want to ask, when will I be made a happy man and see you alone . . . ?

  G. C.

  I held Giacomo’s words to my heart and kissed the top of the page. “Soon,” I whispered to him in the moonlit night. “Soon.”

  CHAPTER 8

  Venice, 1774

  Caterina tried to gauge Leda’s reaction to her story. She wanted the girl to see her in a new way: the beautiful younger woman she had been, the desire she had inspired.

  “Very sweet,” Leda said. She yawned. “What time is it?”

  “Late.” Caterina felt disappointment close in around her. The main room where they sat, enlarged all day by views to the water, appeared black and small.

  Caterina collected her letters from the table and headed back to the spare bedroom. She carried the pile with no particular care while Leda could still see her, but as soon as she turned down the hallway, she hugged them closer. These letters were alive to her still. Now that they were out, it felt impossible to put them back in a locked box. Instead, she lit a candle on the nightstand and tucked them under her pillow. She was almost certain she would not be able to sleep well that night.

  “Signora,” Leda’s voice surprised her in her doorway. Caterina wasn’t sure how many minutes had passed. She felt years away, drifting in a dream.

  “Do you want to hear how I met my lover—Filippo?” Leda settled herself on the bed right on top of Caterina’s nightgown. Lord, she was a funny girl. There was something unpolished about her, despite her wealthy upbringing. Caterina gave her a welcoming smile.

  “It was a few weeks before Christmas,” Leda began, her words rushing out in a new way Caterina had not heard before. “Filippo plays the harpsichord, and my father had invited him to perform at a party. He arrived in a gold silk suit. But I noticed his jacket was rumpled—as if this was the only one he owned and he pulled it out each night to play. Oh, Signora—he is handsome! Black hair, soft eyes, and a little mole right here.” She pointed just above her mouth. Caterina nodded, wanting to share in the memory.

  “He started to play,” Leda continued, her own eyes shining in the candlelight. “I fell in love watching his hands fly over the keys. When the music finally ended, Filippo stood up and—I don’t know how, Signora, but he told me afterward he had felt my stare—he came over to me. One of his eyes is just a tiny bit crossed”—this Leda briefly tried to imitate—“so when he looks at you, it is as if you are the only person in the room. No one else matters. No one else is there.”

  Caterina remembered the feeling. She had felt it, too, for a time, at least. She forced a smile to encourage Leda to continue.

  “Filippo was born in Naples,” Leda went on. “His mother was a well-known singer. He traveled the world with her as a boy—Italy, France, England. Only she had recently died, and he did not know his father. He was alone! My heart went out to him.”

  Leda looked at Caterina for approval of her feelings, and Caterina gave it by putting a hand to her own heart. Still, Leda grew quiet and fingered the gold pendant at her neck. It glowed mysteriously in the night.

  “Was that necklace a gift from Filippo?” Caterina ventured.

  Leda looked surprised. “This?” she asked, holding the thick gold square between her fingers. “It was my mother’s.”

  “Oh!” Caterina regretted she had brought up this subject, when Leda had been happily telling her about her lover. But she seemed to want to talk about this, too.


  “It shows Saint George spearing the dragon—can you see it?” Leda asked. She leaned in so that Caterina could inspect it more closely. Caterina held the candlestick nearby. Now she could make out a knight dressed in armor with a foot resting on a vanquished dragon.

  “And inside”—Leda flipped over the pendant—“is a piece of the saint’s lance encased behind crystal.”

  “It’s . . . lovely,” said Caterina, softly running a finger along the frame. Now that she understood it, it was. “Have you worn it since you lost your mother?”

  “Yes,” said Leda, her words coming less rushed now. “She died from smallpox a year after I was born. She had gone to visit her family in London, fell sick, and never returned home.”

  “Oh, Leda,” Caterina said, stroking the nightgown beneath the girl because she thought it might make her uncomfortable to give her the hug she felt she needed. “I’m so sorry.”

  “The family in England sent me her necklace to wear about a year later. I remember my father fastening it on me—it’s my earliest memory. He said, ‘Corraggio, Leda. Like Saint George.’ ”

  “Saint George was your mother’s patron saint?” Caterina asked.

  “Yes.” Leda smiled. “Georgiana was her name.”

  “I’m sure she was a beauty—like you,” Caterina offered, wanting to lift Leda’s spirits.

  Leda smiled at her weakly. “I don’t think she’d be very proud of me now, Signora.”

  “Nonsense,” said Caterina firmly. She wasn’t sure where her strong response was coming from. “Of course she would be very proud. You mustn’t think these kinds of hurtful thoughts about yourself.”

  CHAPTER 9

  In early April, Bastiano returned to Venice. Caterina heard him before she saw him, shuffling around in the rooms downstairs. Coughing. Sneezing loudly. She went down to greet him and told him about Leda so that he would not say something awkward when he first saw her.

  He kissed Caterina on the forehead.

  “We have a visitor!” she said cheerfully. “Leda Strozzi, from Florence. She is a boarder at my old convent, and I was asked to help her. She needs a place to stay for a while.”

  “To stay? Why?”

  “Oh, she is a beautiful girl. You’ll see.” Caterina tried a new approach. Distract him. “But she fell sick and—”

  “You remind me. I need to go to the pharmacy for some things.”

  The pharmacy was Bastiano’s favorite place in the city. His nose. His stomach. His feet. These parts of his aging body chronically needed help.

  “Does the girl—Lisa, is it?—does Lisa want to come along?”

  “Leda.”

  “Leda. Do you think she wants to go? We can all take a gondola. I have a blister on my toe.”

  * * *

  Caterina brought Leda downstairs to join Bastiano in the waiting gondola. She saw the color rise in her husband’s wrinkled face when he saw the girl. As she had expected. Leda was a beauty in her loose blue cotton dress, eyes shining in the sunlight. Bastiano hopped up in the boat and helped her in, before the gondolier had a chance to assist her.

  “Welcome! Welcome, Leda!” he said, patting her back and almost losing his footing.

  Leda smiled indulgently at him. Caterina chuckled a little to herself. She did not feel jealous. She knew his attention to Leda was innocent. And besides, she had never loved him as a wife.

  * * *

  The pharmacy Vecchia was in Campo San Luca. The square was always bustling with activity, just off the Grand Canal and near the Rialto Bridge. But today, the three of them could hear a roaring crowd even before the gondolier made the turn to dock.

  “What is happening?” Caterina asked.

  “It is the Festival of the Old Wife today,” the gondolier said. “A long tradition at the Vecchia pharmacy.” Caterina saw him steal an admiring glance at Leda.

  “Oh, Lord,” Caterina said. Any day was an excuse for a festival in Venice. She was not in the mood for a noisy crowd. Could she ask Bastiano to go to another pharmacy?

  The gondolier gave a final heave and turned the beak of the boat toward the mooring poles.

  Too late.

  * * *

  They got out and walked down the narrow street that led into the square. Leda ran ahead, drawn by the music and cheering. Caterina took Bastiano’s arm—he was limping from his blister—and played the part of a good wife.

  Spring sunlight warmed them as they entered the square. The pharmacy at the far end was blocked from view by a temporary wood stage. On it sat a large puppet of an old woman, the Old Wife. They pushed closer to see her better. Her face was made of leather: brown and creased. Her lips and cheeks were painted red. Her hair was a mess of fishing nets, and covered by a flopping cotton cap.

  The Old Wife was hideous, but two young actors on the stage whose faces had been whitened by flour paid her burlesque attention. They knelt and kissed her hands and feet; they danced and pranced around her. How attractive they were, Caterina thought, with their lean, stocking-clad legs and black hair smoothed by pomade. She watched their antics for a while, then dropped Bastiano’s arm. After too long touching her husband, it felt uncomfortable to keep it up.

  One of the actors spotted someone in the crowd and motioned for her to come onstage. He held his hands to his heart, begging ardently. He kicked the Old Wife to the floor. The crowd shouted encouragement, while a jangle of out-of-tune instruments played. Finally, a girl was thrust onto the stage. It was Leda! Her dress had come off her shoulder, and she was almost doubled over laughing. She looked happier than Caterina had seen her before—like the sixteen-year-old girl that she was.

  The young man led Leda to sit where the Old Wife had been. He took her hand and kissed it, making an exaggerated bow. The crowd shouted more now, ecstatic. Beauty Triumphs over Old Age. The other young man sawed the Old Wife in two, and candy and confetti poured out. Children scrambled to grab for the sweets, pulling the puppet’s body open like wolves.

  The crowd began to thin, and Bastiano made his way over to the pharmacy. Caterina waited outside, leaning on the wooden stage. She didn’t like pharmacies, or anything to do with illness. The two handsome actors walked by, laughing. They were sweating from their exertions, and it had streaked the flour on their faces. A memory took hold in Caterina’s mind, and she stood there frozen. She followed them with her eyes, thinking about a night long ago when Giacomo had disguised himself with a floured face.

  She swallowed hard to banish the memory, and bowed her head. Bile rose in her throat.

  * * *

  Bastiano joined them upstairs for supper that night. Caterina could never quite understand what he gained from meals with other people: He simply filled his plate and shoveled the food in. Still, it was sweet how he offered Leda sorbet after, and when Leda said yes, he shuffled downstairs to scoop it from where he kept it packed in ice.

  The three ate their sorbet greedily—Bastiano always chose unusual flavors, like pomegranate, or pistachio. Leda’s face was pink and sunburned from the day spent outside, and she seemed content. Her cares were far away from her for now.

  Finally, to Caterina’s relief, Bastiano went downstairs to bed. He always seemed like a heavy coat to her—in summer when she wanted nothing on.

  Leda gave Caterina an inviting smile from across the table. Caterina sensed what she wanted. Or was it more what Caterina, herself, wanted? To not be an Old Wife for the rest of her life? To remember her time of gentle sighs?

  “Do you want to hear more?” she asked Leda. The girl nodded.

  Caterina went to get some letters from the ivory box in her bedroom. The silent pile told her whole story. But she took out just a few more letters to share, inhaling the scent of their sweet pages and clutching them close.

  CHAPTER 10

  Venice, 1753

  My next time to see Giacomo came when Carnival season started, the early days in June. When I was growing up, Carnival had always been marked by a little fair outside my church in
Campo San Gregorio. Masked boys and girls would dance the furlana, floral garlands were hung all about, and the air was fragrant with roasting nuts. But later, I realized that Carnival was mostly about hiding who you were—man or woman, rich or poor—from the world for a while. To be who you were not, to live the life you craved.

  The theaters in Venice were only allowed to play during Carnival time. I had never been to an opera or ballet. Now Pier Antonio invited me to go with him. The secret between us was that Giacomo would meet us at Teatro San Samuele.

  My mother was as gullible as ever.

  “What opera is playing?” she asked. We stood in the kitchen, and she offered my brother a warm cinnamon doughnut wrapped in a linen napkin.

  “The Upside-Down World,” he answered. He grabbed the doughnut from her hand, popped it in his mouth, and snickered until he was choking on the crumbs. I imagine he was thinking she was fairly upside down herself.

  She loved him more than he ever deserved.

  Zulietta came to my house the afternoon of the performance to lend me a dress. She was a little plumper than I was, but this was easily solved by pulling the dress laces tighter. And she knew I had always adored this particular gown. It was sage-colored silk, with dragonflies sewn all over in gold thread. The thread looped around to show the insects’ patterns of flight.

  “I shouldn’t be helping you look so beautiful tonight,” she said as she finished tying the bodice. The dress still smelled of her sweetness—like orange blossoms.

  She reached into her pocket and pulled out a miniature jewel box. “Close your eyes and hold out your hand.” She dropped some trinkets into my palm.

  I opened my eyes. Six dragonflies sat there, hairpins to match the dress. “Oh! They are precious!” I said. “Will you put them in?”