I awoke in the night to another coughing fit, yet this one showed no sign of subsiding. My hacking woke Marco, as well, who, once again in the role of attentive husband, dashed down to the kitchen to fetch me a glass of watered-down wine to soothe my throat. I was only able to take small sips in between the coughing, and soon blood was being expelled from my lungs.
“Send for the doctor,” Marco barked at Chiara, who had come in to assist. “Now! Get him here at once!”
Marco sat beside me in the bed, rubbing my back, trying to get me some wine in between coughs. Yet the blood was still coming when the doctor arrived.
He examined the blood staining a bit of cloth Chiara had given me and, with Marco’s permission, laid an ear against my chest, that he might listen to what was happening within. Then he laid a hand against my brow. “She is burning with fever,” he informed Marco, as though I were not right there.
“She was fine at dinner this evening,” Marco protested. “How can she have become so ill so quickly?”
The doctor hesitated. “She has been ill in the past, yes? Recently?”
“Here and there,” Marco said. “The climate of Florence does not agree with her; I have offered to take her home to Genoa, but she does not wish to leave.”
“I’m afraid the climate has not much to do with it,” the doctor said. “Signor Vespucci, perhaps you and I had best step outside to discuss—”
By then my coughing had slowed enough that I could speak. “I am right here, dottore, and I am not deaf nor addled in the head. Whatever you wish to say to my husband should also be said to me.”
The doctor hesitated again, but when Marco showed no sign of following him out of the room, he relented. “I am not certain yet,” he said. “I will need to monitor your condition throughout the coming days to be sure, Signora Vespucci, but I believe that you have consumption.”
Silence filled the room, broken only by a cry of anguish from Chiara.
Consumption. The wasting disease of the lungs that killed thousands every year.
“That is ridiculous,” Marco said. “How can this be? Simonetta is perfectly healthy.”
“Is she, signore?” the doctor said, albeit gently. “You have just told me she has been ill on and off since she has lived in Florence.”
“How long do I have to live, dottore?” a voice I somehow recognized as mine asked.
The doctor chuckled, though somewhat uncomfortably. “Do not fret yourself overmuch, signora. If I am right, you may still live a full life. After all, you have likely had the disease for years now and not known it. Such things happen.”
What he did not say was as loud as his words—louder, perhaps. I may still live a full life—but I may not, if the disease worsened, if it afflicted me at its full potential. And even if I had had the disease for the past few years, did not the fact that I was now coughing up blood mean that it was getting worse?
“I will bleed you, for now,” he said, “which may make the fever come down. And then I shall return tomorrow to see what progress you have made.”
I turned my head away as he got out his instruments, so that I did not need to see the silver knife enter my flesh, nor my blood dripping into the doctor’s bowl. I closed my eyes and waited for it to be over.
Yet in so doing, I soon fell into a deep, fever-laced sleep. In the brief moments when I awoke in the next few days, I saw Marco’s and Chiara’s faces, as though from very far away; felt the dampness of the sheets and blankets from my sweat; felt a pounding ache in my head as I continued to cough. Soon even these images blended into my dreams, and I could no longer tell when I was asleep or awake, what was truth and what was illusion.
Once I thought that I awoke to find Sandro with me, beside me in the bed. His hands were on my body, hungrily, and I cried out as heat rippled through my skin, as he took me in his arms and touched me in all the ways I had wished he would touch me as I posed for him. And I touched him in return, unable to believe that this was happening, that we were finally here. He whispered my name, and I could hear all the love and desire in his voice. Yet I awoke to find only Chiara in the room with me. “Chiara,” I asked, struggling to speak. “Where … where is he?”
“Signor Vespucci is … not home,” she said. “May I bring you anything, Madonna? Water or wine or…”
I frowned. Marco? That was not who I had meant. But of course Sandro would not be there; he was not my husband. Yet Marco was. Where was Marco?
A memory sneaked into my head, tinged with anger. There was another woman. Was that where he was, as when I had lain ill before?
Suddenly it seemed as though I could see them, could see Marco with some dark-haired harlot, a beautiful woman who panted wantonly and cried out his name as he thrust into her. I turned my head away, yet still I could see them, still the image followed me, and I could not escape it. I closed my eyes and curled into a ball, and I heard a woman weeping raggedly, and I could only wait for it all to be over.
*
When I finally awoke, it seemed to be afternoon, judging by the slant of light that came in through the window. Chiara was sitting in a chair near the window, doing some mending.
My mouth was so dry it was a struggle to speak; I had to moisten my lips with my tongue twice before any words would come out. “Chiara,” I said hoarsely.
She started, leaping out of her chair. “Madonna! Oh, you are awake! How do you feel?”
“Water,” was all I could manage.
“Of course, of course,” she said. “I will fetch you some immediately. And I will send Signor Vespucci in.” Before I could question her—What day was it? How long had I been asleep? Had il dottore been back?—she was gone.
Perhaps a minute later, Marco came into the room, looking weary and haggard. “Simonetta,” he said. “You are awake.”
For an instant the image of him with the whore flashed through my brain, and I recoiled at the sight of him. But that was but a fevered dream, no more. I had not really seen such a thing. “So it would seem.”
He dropped onto the bed beside me and let out a sigh.
“How long was I asleep?” I asked, fearing the answer but needing to know.
“Three days,” he said.
I drew in my breath sharply, shocked.
“It … it was terrible.” He ran his fingers through his already disheveled hair. “I thought I was going to lose you for certain.”
Despite everything, I was touched by the way that thought had obviously upset him, despite all that had gone awry between us of late. He does care for me. He must. “Has the doctor been back?” I asked.
“He has. He has been here many times, though you do not remember, I am sure.”
I shook my head. “I dreamt many strange things … and I cannot say what was real and what was a dream.”
He nodded. “Well, he has been here a great deal of late. He said…” Marco hesitated.
“Tell me, Marco,” I said, my voice as strong as I could make it. “For pity’s sake, tell me what he said.”
He sighed again, then finally met my gaze. “He confirmed that you have consumption.”
I closed my eyes. Suddenly, I felt unimaginably weary again.
Consumption. It was not a surprise, but to hear it confirmed was another thing entirely.