The Secret of the Glass (16 page)

“Tell me,” Damiana urged, keeping her friend’s hand in her own.

Sophia heaved a deep, staccato breath, leaning back against the sun-warmed wood of the bench.

“I knew something was happening to my father for weeks now, he began to…to change. He lost track of his words, and what he was doing. He became confused so easily, and his confusion made him so angry.” Sophia’s gaze stretched out along the shimmering tips of the gentle ocean waves, a furrow came to her brow as if she tried to count them as they peaked and waned. “Last night was the worst yet. The physician said…it’s the dementia. There’s no…there’ll be no recovery.”

“Oh, Sophia,” Damiana cried, her pale eyes filling with her tears as she grabbed Sophia’s arm, her fingers digging into the soft, caramel-colored flesh.

The outpouring burst from Sophia like the storms carried on the
scirocco
, the southeast gales that carried the torrential rains of the flooding
aqua alta
. Her lips quivered as she told Damiana of her father’s illness, of its trudging assault over the last few weeks.

Sophia rubbed at her tight jaw with her fingertips; she could speak no more of her papà just now, could think no more of it or her spirit would tear from the stabbing grief.

“And, you are betrothed?” Damiana sat forward on the bench and, with a tender touch, tucked in a strand of Sophia’s hair that had come loose in the breeze. Seagulls glided above their heads, held aloft by the invisible hand of the wind, their raucous cries echoing like mocking laughter. “To Pasquale da Fuligna?” Her voice rose higher, incredulous, and more than a little repulsed.

Sophia’s shoulders curled inward and her head flopped forward. Mired in worry over her father, she had somehow forgotten this distressing stratum of her chaotic future but the disheartening reality rushed back to her with a vengence. She dropped her hands into her lap.

“
Sì
, ’tis true.”

“This is not of your parents’ doing, is it?”

Sophia shook her head adamantly. “No. No, of course not, it’s strictly the da Fuligna’s efforts and insistence that has brought this about and I have no idea why.” She raised her shoulders high, her hands thrust wide in abject confusion. “I have no acquaintance with the man at all.”

Her teeth ached as she spoke of da Fuligna, his unpleasantness, and his sour family. Her hands fluttered in the air like two frantic butterflies as she told Damiana about her visit to their home. Wherries came and went and still the friends remained on their seats, like two stunned, battle-weary soldiers having just quit the field. There was but one more thing for Sophia to tell Damiana and she felt an entirely unfamiliar pang of fear at the thought of it. But for her friend to comprehend the entirety of the situation, and Sophia needed her to, needed someone to, Damiana must know it all; Sophia must tell it all.

“There’s more.”

Sophia faltered, looking down in shame and embarrassment.

Damiana ducked her head, retrieving their lost connection.

“Tell me, Sophia. You can tell me anything.”

Sophia heard the unconditional love and her heart swelled with it. She took a steadying breath.

“I make the glass,” she whispered, her admission like an adulterer in her weekly confessional. “I’ve been making the glass for many years.”

Damiana’s hand rose to her mouth, pink lips rounding in a perfect circle of surprise.

Sophia held her breath. The silence unbearable, she feared it spoke of her loving friend’s disapproval.

“Say something, anything, please,” Sophia beseeched her, clutching Damiana’s free hand, enduring the torturous scrutiny as the pale blue stare scoured her face.

When it came, Damiana’s hushed response was nothing less than shocking.

“You make the glass? How wonderful.”

“What!” Sophia’s tear-stained face screwed up in utter confusion.

“It explains so much,” Damiana laughed. “There was always something, a deep part of you, that I couldn’t understand and it troubled me so, as if you were not as much my friend as I was yours.”

“No, no,” Sophia gasped, grabbed her friend’s shoulders and hauled her into a clenching embrace. “I did not want to burden you, to force you to break the law with your knowing as I did with my actions.”

Damiana returned the affection, the emotion. Sophia forgot all else for a moment and reveled in relief. The friends laughed together as they separated and saw their matching tears. Beyond all else, they had found a deeper connection, a joining of spirits that transcended the physical, the earthly. It bound them spiritually and for a stolen snippet of time, they lived in the moment of joy. They sat wrapped in their bond, sharing a wisp of linen and lace.

“Oh, Sophia, your papà,” Damiana sobbed against the cloth and it became Sophia’s turn to console.

As her arm encircled Damiana’s shoulders, strength infused her. Grief still ravaged her, fear for her future still clutched her, but with the sharing there arose a buttressing, as if the telling of her stories, the revealing of her burdens, had fortified her.

“You always know that you will lose your parents but it always seems so distant, a reality but surely not a possibility. To lose my father means I will not be his child and I want nothing of it.” Sophia stared out, far beyond the undulating, never-ending sea before her.

Damiana’s red-eyed stare raked over her friend’s grief-mottled features. “What will you do?”

Sophia shook her head. “I’m not sure…yet.”

Damiana frowned, unfamiliar with the angry, determined light that suddenly appeared in her friend’s eye. “What are you—”

“Come.” Sophia jumped to her feet, putting a halt to any more questions. “Another barge has arrived. We must be on this one.”

Sophia towed the smaller woman to the ramp and onto the flat, square ship, an ungraceful vessel of function, elbowing past and around the ballooning group of passengers. Packed together like fish caught in a net, there would be no chance for a private conversation yet no possibility of a normal one with what hung suspended between them, and the girls rode in a companionable yet pregnant silence.

As they stepped off the boat and onto the Molo of St. Mark’s, Sophia led them north toward Le Mercerie.

“After I speak to our
fattori
and purchase my mother’s lace, I would like to visit my
Zia
Elena.”

Damiana faltered, hanging back as Sophia entered the piazzetta. It wasn’t often that Sophia visited her mother’s sister and her family, except on rare special occasions. After the untimely death of their parents, the sisters had grown apart, a breach made all the wider when Viviana married a glassmaker and accepted his life of confinement and seclusion.

“Your
zia?”

“
Sì
, come,
paesana
,” Sophia called to Damiana with the distinctive endearment of those who shared a village, took two steps back and jerked her hesitating friend along with her into the teeming square. Mid-morning at market was the busiest time, and it would be impossible to explain more while in the clutch of such commotion.

Though not as riotous as during the Marriage of the Sea, the smaller piazzetta and the broader piazza pulsated with activity nonetheless; the gaming tables beneath the two mighty columns flourished with customers, native and foreigner alike, while courtiers, magistrates, and councilmen rushed in and out of the palace and other government buildings.

Along each continuous range of the Procuratie Vecchie and Procuratie Nuove, the latter less than two decades old, vendors’ tents lined up like trees in a dense forest. The colorful booths, aligned with the bands of light-colored stone of the courtyard running parallel to the long axis of the piazza, festooned the fronts of the government buildings and offered every conceivable trinket and foodstuff for sale beneath the shade of their huts. Voices and music filled the air and the ears, colors and shapes of every variety assaulted the eye, and tempting aromas of meat sizzling on braziers mingled with the acidic scent of unwashed bodies. Harried and hurried shoppers jostled by strolling sightseers and tumbrels overflowing with flowers, fruits, and breads plowed through the crowds, driven by owners calling out as they hawked their wares.

Passing through the long, dim shaft of shade thrown by the
campanile
, the women crossed to the two-storied Romanesque arch of the clock tower. Sophia’s gaze rose to the face of the mammoth Torre dell’Orologio. The concentric dials of the enameled face showed the hours of the day, all twenty-four, the signs of the zodiac and, in its cobalt center, the phases of the moon and the sun. Perched far above the clock on the roof of the tower, beyond the plinth directly above the clock supporting the Madonna and Child, past the fourth bay and the statue of the Winged Lion of St. Mark, two bronze statues crowned the zenith. Long since blackened by hundreds of years of exposure, the Moors, as they were now called, swung their giant clappers every hour, the clangs ringing out the passing time.

Sophia’s head tilted farther and farther back as they crossed beneath the enormous clock, its size and significance a symbol of her burdens. She could almost feel the weight as it passed above her. Once the long pool she languished in, time had become her enemy; an unrelenting, unwavering soldier that she would fight against with every ounce of strength she possessed.

It was a few short steps down the Mercerie to the large stall of La Spada glassworks. As usual, a crowd huddled round its perimeter, men and women exclaiming over the beautiful creations displayed within, willingly passing over many
ducats
to possess their own pieces. The haggling rent the air like a goose’s gaggle, until the deal was made, then the hands would slap and shake, and the deal struck. For a fleeting moment, Sophia allowed the satisfaction of their praising words, their approbation of her work, to wash over her, but only for a moment. Today was not a day of celebration but one of work, all types of work.

Squeezing between two large patrons, Sophia caught the attention of one of the busy men stationed behind the linen-covered tables.

“Afternoon, signore Balbi,” Sophia called out.

The diminutive, gray-haired man squinted into the brightness beyond the shaded stall, his bushy brows flicking up with affectionate recognition.

“Signorina Sophia, how good to see you.”

Rushing away from the table, Lorenzo Balbi exited from the back of the stall and met Sophia as she rounded its side. Balbi had served as the
fattori,
the representative for the Fiolario family glassworks, since before Sophia’s birth. It was his job to see to the distribution of their finished goods and deal with the merchants who supplied the raw materials. The diminutive man welcomed Sophia with a tender embrace and a paternal kiss on each of her firm cheeks.

Sophia counted this man among the blessings in her life; his efficiency, his honesty, and his dedication to her family enabled the continued prosperity begun so many years ago and allowed Zeno, and Sophia, to concentrate on their creations.

“I see business thrives, as usual.”

“Oh,
sì, sì
, in fact…”

The energetic man spun away, slipping behind the thick golden canvas of the stall, returning in a flash with a small, rolled parchment in his hands.

“I was going to send this over to the factory today. The orders are coming in so fast, I think I will need to send them three times each week, instead of twice.”

Sophia gave the list a transitory study.

“
Grazie
, signore. Perhaps we will need to hire another worker or two.”

“Perhaps,” Balbi crooned with pleasure, rubbing his hands together with fiendish delight. “Perhaps three, if this continues.”

“
Bene
,
molto bene
.” Sophia nodded, pleased by the man’s news; the family would not have any monetary concerns for many years—generations—to come if business continued like this. “I…we…that is, my father needs some particular material.” Sophia thrust her blushing nose into her basket, searching for her list, hoping to distract Balbi from her embarrassment and faltering tongue.

The experienced
fattori
held the inventory at arm’s length, eyes narrowing with strain, the tip of his tongue protruding from his full lips as he read the daintily written lines of text.

“
Nonè problema
, Sophia, it will be there by the end of the day.”

Sophia sighed with relief. “You are won—”

“Balbi,
pronto,
” a harried voice from within the booth cried out in obvious agitation.

“
Mi scusi
, Sophia, business calls.” Balbi pecked another quick kiss in the air by her cheek, ran with a bounce back to his work, and called over his shoulder. “Tell Zeno all is well.”

“I will.” Sophia assured him.

She would tell her father everything, all about the growth of the business, whether he was having a good day or not, whether he comprehended any of what she said, or not.

“What is this special material for?” Damiana asked. She’d caught her friend’s verbal stumble, seen the flush of color march across her face. “More secrets?”

Sophia spun round, a thrusting hand smacking against her forehead.

“Ah,
cara mia
, not a secret, just…more.”

As they hurried to the end of the Mercerie and crossed the Rialto Bridge into the borough of Santa Croce, Sophia told her confidante all about the visit of signore Sagredo and professore Galileo and the inventive pieces she couldn’t wait to make.

Damiana shook her head in astonishment at the end of the recital, her eyes wide with wonder.

“Your life, it is so…tumultuous, so…turbulent. Who knew?”

Sophia barked a short, cynical laugh. “It is not what I would wish for, I can assure you. All I ever wanted was to make the glass, to continue the traditions of my family.”

“Perhaps you still can, just not in the way that you would have hoped. You will retain ownership, in effect, just through your hu—husband.”

Sophia looked at Damiana with sadness, pale eyes ringed by sooty circles, lids heavy with an aged wisdom so recently acquired.