a vast expanse—it’s far too vast—
until it meets the bodice of my dress,
a shield but also constrictor
of my breasts, my breath,
I cannot breathe.
I must.
I’ll never be the giggling girls
who huddle in the piazza
or lean out windows,
dropping notes to their beloveds.
More than once I’ve wondered
what it would be like
to have no more pressing cares
than whether my love
might pass beneath my window.
But I decided long ago what mattered.
Now this man has come for me.
Not in that way—
I’m such a child!
And yet I cannot keep from
echoing his voice inside my head
as my name falls from his lips.
At the thought
my knees give way.
But Mr. Tassi’s deep in contemplation,
doesn’t pay me any mind.
Doesn’t see me grope the air
for where to place my hands,
arrange my arms,
learn how to stand again.
I pick a focal point and breathe.
If I can learn
to paint with nothing
but my wits
then I can make it through
a conversation
with this stranger
in my studio.
16.
Agostino Tassi’s
thick, furrowed brows
hover over pitch-black eyes
fringed with lashes longer than
the strands of my best paintbrush.
(Do I exaggerate?
Perhaps.
But I’ve been living
in a muted, neutral palette
and now the sun shines through
stained glass more vibrant
than Marcillat’s
Life of the Virgin.)
His tousled hair nearly brushes
the slanted ceiling of this horrid studio.
His cheekbones are chiseled from marble
by a sculptor with no subtlety,
but there’s softness too.
He gazes at the canvas,
open to whatever it brings.
Suddenly I’m mortified
by these dismal surroundings.
He shifts his weight—
impressive weight, no delicate artist, he,
a hum of power thrums through his bones—
the floorboards creak.
The rich brocade
of his jacket is more valuable
than all my clothes combined.
So much finer than anything I own
and suddenly it’s very clear
this man is from the outside world
a man I’ve never met
alone with me
inside my studio—
my father’s studio.
As if in answer to the unasked question,
Signor Tassi wrenches his gaze
from my Madonna,
turns his charcoal eyes
upon my frazzled face,
no doubt smudged with
pigment
panic
sweat—
Your father’s kitchen girl
let me up.
17.
I once found mouse tracks
in the bread dough
and it’s not uncommon
for flies to float
through our wine.
Tuzia’s snores fill
the tiny room we share
so even when my mind
has slowed enough to sleep,
I can’t.
In the corners,
great dustballs congregate,
accusing me of neglect
as woman of the house.
Her doughy bosom,
graying hair,
plump but muscled arms,
bring to mind a kindly woman,
affectionate, warm.
She’s not.
But mostly:
Tuzia has made the choice
to leave me unaccompanied
in the studio
with a man.
Not father, brother.
Man.
And instead of urging him toward the door,
I wonder how I can make him stay.
18.
The canvas is blank.
He makes the first stroke.
Your father asked
if I might take a look
at your most recent work.
He says you need help
with perspective.
Is he coming?
(Pause.)
He was dealing with
debt collectors in the piazza.
That’s embarrassing.
I assume it is Orazio’s debt,
not yours?
Yes, Signor Tassi.
He winks.
I flush.
Call me Tino.
Oh, I couldn’t.
He gauges my discomfort,
returns his gaze to my Madonna.
I wait for him to speak
but when I cannot stand
the silence any longer:
My father says
you’ve come to town
for the Quirinal Palace commission.
That’s true.
I expect your father’s hoping
I’ll bring him in on the commission
more than he’s hoping
I’ll teach you perspective.
Of course.
The arm’s a bit flat.
He may be here as a connection,
but he’s skilled.
If my father were
any sort of artist
he could teach me himself.
You’re a lucky girl,
that your father’s willing
to have you
as apprentice.
My tongue gropes for words,
redemption.
You’re not wrong,
by the way.
His painting is shit.
Between us, of course.
A strangled bark
of laughter escapes.
Of course, Signor Tassi.
I’m not the only one
speaking out of turn.
He looks at me.
Through me.
Tino, please.
I meant that.
Really, I don’t—
It’ll be our little secret.
It’s no small secret,
to call him Tino.
Tino.
You see?
His smile fills the room
as though each wall is glass,
and ceilings too,
and this, the sunniest
spot in all of Rome.
That wasn’t so hard.
Roman society did not storm
the walls, drag us away
to be tortured.
I’ll tell you another secret.
What’s that?
There’s a lot you can get away with
when no one is watching.
Carefree
See in that artist’s mind of yours Susanna in her garden. Carefree, but only for a moment. Because, you see, you’re not the only one watching her.
There are intruders lurking j
ust out of reach. It seems inconceivable at first. She’s in her private garden, her home. She’s sent her ladies away. Why, then, would two men be leering over her wall, stealing what’s rightfully hers?
They’re not monsters, either. Not men you’d shrink away from on the street. On the contrary. They’re men you’d see at Mass, who’d give you a polite nod while they greet your husband.
You can imagine having a husband, can’t you, darling?
The important thing to remember here is that these two men are leaders in their community. Handsome, even. Respected and wise. Entrusted with advising the highest levels of government.
Of course, they don’t need to be respected leaders to have more power than Susanna. Any man who breathes has more power than a woman in her world—and our world, too. And these men who lurk on the other side of the wall, planning their attack on a woman who only thought to wash the day away, will crush her world to dust upon a whim.
This may shock you, for you are still young. But this should not surprise Susanna. Of course she’ll startle when she realizes they’re there, but upon reflection, she’ll understand that she’s a woman in a world where her father got a receipt of sale upon her wedding day. She is a thing to be used by men.
And you should realize, love, that even the simple act of a bath is potentially world-altering. But then, you never see the beast until he is upon you.
19.
I am a child learning
single-point perspective.
Perhaps next we shall
mix blue with red
and see what we discover!
Still, I consent.
I’ve never had
a proper teacher.
So I will be
a proper student.
I listen to Signor Tassi
Tino, I insist.
determined
to make the most
of his wisdom.
In single-point perspective
there’s one vanishing point.
The place where all lines
parallel to the viewer
converge.
Just imagine:
you’re standing
in the middle
of a long, flat road,
gazing as far as the eye can see.
He’s poised behind me,
pointing; one hand
rests on my shoulder,
the other stretches
out in front
of our bodies,
my heart thudding
so hard I may not hear
what he says next.
Somewhere, far out in the distance
the two sides of the road
will come together
in one vanishing point.
They always come together,
those two lines.
Even if they’re very
far apart to start.
We stand there for a moment, staring
down the length of his steady arm
side by side, breath in sync,
converged like the point
out on the horizon
where our two
lines have
become
one.
Trapped
One more story, love. Then we must slip into dreams.
Now where did we leave Susanna? Ah yes, her sister threw a tantrum. But that all melts away the moment Susanna dips her toe into the water.
(I do so wish this baby’s tantrums might be calmed by a single drop of water. But do you know, the constant kicking, pushing, jockeying for the best position leads me to believe you’ll have a sister soon enough. Your brothers never kicked this much. But you . . . oh, darling girl. Even from the start, you couldn’t bear to be constrained.)
Susanna, too, is trapped. She endures it with more grace than you, but she is older. She understands the world she lives in. She doesn’t want to cause a scene. But if presented with a choice, she’d happily trade the rest of Joaquim’s grand home—the painted tiles, carved archways, every last detail her sister pines for—for this private garden, this bit of bliss where the late afternoon sun beats down to warm the water where it pools.
Why should a little corner of the garden be so important to a woman like Susanna? A woman with a palatial home, and the finest garments. Because imagine it—if you live as she does, surrounded by endless people and their expectations, ones you cannot possibly live up to, you do not even want to live up to—that refuge might be the only place you are safe.
When Susanna’s stripped off her robes and slipped into the blue, it no longer matters who her husband is. She can pretend her parents never handed her over like one of the prize goats that came along in the deal. That her sister never wept at the injustice, never slashed the robe she was to wear on her wedding night in retribution for something Susanna never wanted to begin with.
Sometimes, when she escapes to the garden, she slips all the way under, lets the water close over the top of her head, and relishes the utter and absolute silence. The last time she tried that, though, she only enjoyed the silence for a few moments before hands clamped over her arms, yanked her back up, a reverse baptism. Gossiping maidservants fluttered around, congratulated themselves for saving her, scolded her for needing a savior.
Susanna did not need a savior.
She learned to swim in the river with her brothers when she was still young enough to steal a tunic and run about the village as a boy. She will not drown in a shallow pool. And trapped though she feels, Susanna would not choose to fill her lungs and make the silence permanent.
But there will be no convincing the ladies around her that she will not soon need saving again. Ever since that day, they have stuck to Susanna like honey dried into the fibers of her finest dress.
Some days Susanna pities them, the women who’ll never stop grasping toward a station they’ll never reach. But today is not one of those days.
Susanna is grown by the standards of her world, but in this moment, her youth shines through. She makes a face exactly like the one you make when you find greens upon your dinner plate, and casts it toward the window where she knows the women loom.
Then she holds her breath and sinks into obscurity.
20.
The water has grown cool
but the air upon my wet skin
is cooler still.
I sink deeper in the tub.
Tuzia promised
to bring more
boiling water.
But now she
oohs and aahs
as Giulio recites his lesson,
my bath forgotten.
My teeth begin to chatter.
I brace myself,
then stand,
gasp as the air hits my skin.
This is the moment
Tuzia chooses
to step into the room.
She grabs the length of cloth
I cannot reach
and flings it at me.
cover yourself!
No fawning maidservant
is Tuzia.
I step carefully from the tub,
dry myself, reach for my smock.
Must you always wear
that ratty thing?
If she is going to stand there,
scrutinize my every move,
then she can get her fill.
I turn and face her,
take the time to dry
my dripping hair
before I pull the smock
over my head.
I’m going to paint,
not meet the Pope.
Next up, my petticoats.
More layers than
the onions I will peel
before the day is through.
Signor Tassi will be here soon.
I wait,
as though to say,
And so?
She cannot help herself:
Just because you
are doing a man’s work
does not mean
you need to look
like a man.
I shrug on my bodice,
lace it up.
I spend a moment
longer than usual
arranging the ruffles
of the smock
peeking out
from beneath.
At Tuzia’s smirk
I cut her off.
I don’t entertain
a suitor. I learn
from one my father
wishes to exploit.
21.
That burst of inspiration,
that sudden vision of the inner eye—
that’s my first fire.
That’s when I absolutely
must get the image
on paper—a sketch, a rough rendering
of the vision I see
perfectly in my mind.
When the first fire ignites,
there’s no time to grind the colors
heat the oil
cut the linen
stretch the canvas.
There’s only time to capture it.
The thing that flows
from the charcoal to my scrap
of paper is nothing
that can be described
with words. Just an image
I can’t even name.
Echoes of the tales
my mother used to tell.
Shadows of the places
where different colors come together.
Vanishing points.
Today, a girl
in a garden.
She’s naked.
She’s bathing.
Her face is unclear still—
but wait.
It’s clearer now,
calm and peaceful.
That’s not quite right,
not for the end result,
I know, but this is now,
not then.
For at least a few more moments,
she doesn’t know
what’s waiting
behind that wall.
22.
My fingers burn
with desire to move
beyond sketches,
to place Susanna on the canvas
in her garden,
use what I’ve learned
to tell her story.