Chapter 172: A Husband, Applied as Directed

The oak table had been cleared of its letters, and Vito crossed the office carrying a tray in both hands. He reached the master chamber and worked the latch with his hip.

He set the tray on the chest just inside and washed his hands and forearms at the ewer. The room smelled of lime and vinegar, fresh straw lay at the foot of the bed, a lamp burned on the chest, and the Panagia’s flame stood steady in its corner.

The shutter was open a hand’s width to let in the canal air, and across the water, the Compline bell was ringing, while the caulkers had put away their mallets for the night.

Cristina, Caterina’s mother and keeper of the pot, had ordered liver and greens, and Vito had promised at the kitchen door that they would be eaten. They were under the cloth, just as she wanted, but beneath the fold lay a few things Cristina hadn’t commanded.

Vinegared figs, dry bread, honey, a wedge of sheep’s cheese, and a cup of boiled water cooled in the cistern. A household runs more smoothly when a husband knows which orders to obey and which ones to work around.

Caterina lay among the cushions, her hair loose and damp at the nape, and her chemise open at the throat. She held a folded sheet of the new paper, pleated into a fan, while her bosom sat heavy and tender beneath the linen, her belly had risen like a wineskin filled to the neck, and the heat made the whole business worse.

"Finalmente! The husband arrives, and the night already half dead!"

She pointed the fan at the covered tray. "Ciò, marito, that liver has been breathing on me, and I have been breathing back, so now we are enemies, the liver and me. My mother swore on the Gospel, Vitale, that you would bring that and greens. So, where are my figs? Do not make the face of the calf, I know you, where are they?"

"Figs? Figs, mia cara?"

He lifted the cloth and revealed them with a flourish. "Behold, the saints in their mercy, they have put them here. The Gospel has lied to you, and I am only its humble servant."

Her face softened, but she caught herself at it and immediately went back to scolding. "Come, come here, ostrega! Madonna, you are hot like a baker’s oven, Vitale, you will roast me where I lie! Go. Sit over there, by the wall, far, far. No, no, come back, come back! Who told you to go?"

Vito climbed over the bolsters. "Behold the most Serene Husband. Council man, landlord, master of keels, footstool, and now, by the unanimous voice of this house, a fifth office, moglie. I am appointed bolster. No salary, only honor, and a very bad knee."

He fed her the figs one at a time because she insisted on being fed, then gave her honey, cheese, and bread. She ate enough for a company coming off a long march, while the liver remained under its cloth and no one saw any reason to bring it up.

Then Vito arranged himself as furniture, leaning against the bolsters with his knees drawn up as he settled Caterina between them, her back against his chest and her belly left free. He slipped his forearms beneath her bosom to support their weight and ease the ache, then cupped the underside of her belly with his palms to hold it up.

A cloth wrung out in vinegar rested across her nape, and he took the fan and stirred the air over her throat.

It took three attempts and some shifting of the cushions before they found a way to sit that the child would tolerate, every position drawing a kick of protest.

Once she had to get up for the chamber pot. He steadied her by the elbow and studied the Panagia while she managed the business, and when she returned, he restored every cushion to its proper place, warmed rose oil between his palms, and rubbed it into the tight, itching skin of her belly.

It was the same oil that had scented her hair on their wedding night.

A heel struck on the left, an answering shove landed on the right and low, and then a third push rose beneath her ribs. Her belly rolled under his hand, and Caterina gasped, then laughed, setting the child moving again with her laughter.

That afternoon the midwife had pressed her ear against the belly for longer than the saints could reasonably require, but at last she had said only that the child would come before the month was out.

Caterina clapped a hand to her ribs, then slid it down to her hip, chasing the blows. "Ohimè! Vitale, there, a heel under my ribs, and the elbow at my hip, in the same breath! Madonna santa, how does one little creature kick in two directions at once?"

Vito bent his ear to the swell and listened. "But of course, anima mia, it is a sitting. The Great Council, in session, in there, the Young on the left, the Old on the right, and listen how they shout. The Young, they kick harder. The rascals."

She flapped the fan at him, begging for quarter, already wheezing, already crying with it.

Then the laughter folded into a groan and both hands went under the weight. "Madonna santa, stop, stop, do not make me laugh! It moves when I laugh, ciò, it dances! Ah, ah! There. You see? Look what you have done to me, you buffoon."

His palm lay flat on the belly, gently. "The Young have carried the floor, and the Old, the old goats, they sit in the corner with their beards on their chests. Shhh. Lie still, anima mia, and let the Old sulk."

The Council sitting inside her gave Caterina an idea for a real one. She asked for the books, which lay shut on the chest within Vito’s easy reach. He fetched it and opened it on the shelf of her belly, last page uppermost, where a single line had been ruled and left blank.

The sitting came to order. The lamp took the place of the candle with its red bands, Caterina occupied the chair as the Ducal Council, and Vito, a Council member who couldn’t get up because he was furniture, asked permission to speak.

The charge came first, the name afterward.

The boy’s list went quickly. Vitale was struck out because two Vitale’ in one house would leave no one to scold, and Marco was rejected without a vote.

Orso was vetoed because the bear belonged to the lagoon’s legends, and the lieutenant would be unbearable once he heard that they had named a child after it. Zaccaria was vetoed on account of the scowl he would wear in the cradle, while Enrico was proposed and rejected in the same breath.

It was too expensive a name for a house that already owed the Doge a line in its accounts.

The girl’s list took longer. Irene was proposed in honor of Marouda and in the hope of keeping the peace, and Cristina followed, for Caterina’s mother.

The trouble was that every other pleasant name in the house had already been fastened to a machine. Nane had given Marietta to a crane, Isotta to a beam, Santina to a pile driver, Beatrice to a sawmill, Concetta to a stamp mill, and Menega to a saw frame. Lucietta was hanging over the water-gate as a hoist.

"Leonardo, if it is a boy."

Caterina spoke softly, her eyes filling as she blamed the liver. "My father, he never in his life had the courage to quarrel with one soul, not one, and still he is the kindest man in all the Golden Horn. That I want the child to catch, a little, like a cold."

"Then Leonardo it is, moglie, and I will write it myself in my best hand."

He kissed her temple. "And for a girl, Lucia. For the saint who witnessed your vow, plate and all, God bless her sharp eyes."

She turned the name over on her tongue once, twice.

"Lucia Barozzi."

A pause. "Ah. It sits well. Mia madre, she will weep into the pot, Vitale, and we will eat salt for a week. And Marouda, she will cry Irene, Irene, Irene, like a rooster at dawn. And I... I will say Lucia. Louder."

He raised one finger. "And a virtue, mia cara, above every name in this house. Nane has not yet put his bolts in it! Lucietta, pah, Lucietta is only the hoist at the water-gate, and a saint, I say, a saint outranks a crane."

She laughed until her belly rolled. "Dio mio, that man, he names a sawpit, he names a crane, he names a pile driver, and my own child, ciò, still without a name in my belly."

"Keep a second name ready, anima mia. You entered it as two once, so you ought to remember."

"I said children, marito. Over the years. One at a time, like reasonable merchants."

A name needed to be heard, and in their talk the people who would hear it began arriving one by one.

The Doge would hear first, before the fishwives and before the bells, just as Vito had sworn at the wedding, while Lunardo would hear by the first galley and weep into a letter, and Zio Marco would get the news from the fishwives. The Contarini elders would arrive with a chapel and a basket of eels, while the godfathers were still at sea.

The nurse who had taught Vito his letters from a cargo tally would teach the child its letters too, beginning with A for amphorae, while Caterina intended to make it A for alum and audit.

Vito would carry the child down to the Molo to watch the ring go into the sea and teach it the names of every Doge there had ever been, in order, while Caterina would teach the child to count before it could walk.

Their talk went on, slow and steady, and the fan slowed with it. Caterina turned her face toward the door and the bell.

She said it to the door rather than to him, her voice small. "Marouda says, Vitale, listen, no husband has ever stayed in the room. And the midwife says she will bar the door with a basin, as if it were a sword."

Vito squared his shoulders against the bolsters. "A basin! Ha! Then let her bring the basin, mia cara, and let it meet a husband more patient than itself. Marouda, she has her slipper. The midwife, she has her crock. And me, I have a biscuit oath, sworn on a ship’s biscuit, hard as a Genoese heart, and it binds a man tighter than any Gospel."

The bluster left her all at once, and her cheeks sank into the hollow of his shoulder as if it had been cut to fit. "My father, he told you, no? That I would say I need no looking after, that I would bite and spit like a cat. Eh. Ben. Tonight... tonight I need it, Vitale. Will you stay?"

His thumb moved over the curve of her belly, slow and steady. "Anima mia. On the night of the church I told you, no? So I will be in that room, if I must be bolted to the floor like one of Nane’s cranes."

She found his hand and laced her fingers through his.

Caterina fell asleep with her cheek against his shoulder, and then came the soft, unguarded noise she had sworn would earn him a trip overboard if he ever mentioned it.

Vito swore silence to the shutter and told no one.

He drew the cloth away from her nape, propped the cushions behind her, and left the lamp burning.

Under his palm, the whole width of Caterina’s belly tightened hard as a cask head, held for a moment, then relaxed. The midwife had said the child would come before the month was out, and there was not much month left.

Vito kept his hand where it was.