This time it was I who reached out and took her hand. “Then perhaps God will see fit to spare me after all, since it is you who beseeches Him,” I said. “For I know of no better, kinder soul than you.”
She smiled, blinking away tears. “If He hears any of my prayers, I hope it is this one.” She shook her head slightly. “Now, though, it is enough of that. No doubt one day when we are old women together we shall look back on this day and laugh.”
I smiled, releasing her. “Perhaps,” I said.
I spoke the words, even though I did not believe them.
36
Later that night, I began to wonder if I should write to Sandro. I had last had word from him some weeks ago, when I was still ill, and thought he should know that I was recovered—for the time being, anyway. If there was a space of time when I might pose for him, we must take it while we could.
I went into my dressing room and opened the locked drawer in my dressing table. I pulled out Sandro’s latest note and smoothed it out to read again. I knew I should burn such correspondence, but I could not bear to be rid of his letters right away. I had to save them for a short time, at least.
He had written that he hoped I would get well soon; that he prayed for my recovery. He wished that he could visit me, but knew Marco would not take kindly to such an overture. He ended by saying that he had continued work on the painting when he was able, and had begun to work on some of the other figures. Venus, he wrote, could wait for me.
Suddenly, Marco’s voice came from the doorway. “Simonetta, Chiara says that—”
But I was never to know what Chiara said. I jumped when I heard him so near, and tried to hide the note back in the drawer, an instinct that only served to arouse his suspicion.
“What do you have there?” he asked, stepping closer to where I sat at the dressing table.
“Nothing,” I said, trying to slam the drawer shut. “Just some old letters from home.”
“Then why are you hiding them from me?” he asked.
“I am not hiding them—you startled me, that is all…”
“Then let me see,” Marco said, catching the drawer before I could close it. He pulled out the note I had just been reading and quickly read through it. “This … this is from the painter?” he asked in disbelief. “He writes to you?”
“No—that is, not regularly, he just wanted to wish me well, since I’ve been ill, as you see yourself,” I said. “We correspond about when I might come to pose for him, look there…”
“Then why lie to me, Simonetta, if it is as innocent as all that?” he asked. “‘I have been on my knees day and night praying for your recovery’ … that sounds a bit familiar, does it not?”
“He is a friend, that is all,” I said. “I have known him for many years, as you well know—oh, Marco, no! Just leave it alone!”
But he had pulled out the rest of the contents of the drawer—another two notes from Sandro and, at the bottom, the sketch he had given me of his vision for The Birth of Venus.
Marco stared at it for a long time, and I could see by the way the paper shook that his hands were trembling. “This,” he said at last. “He drew this.”
It was not a question, and so I did not feel the need to answer him. I remained silent.
“Is this … is this the great, mysterious painting you are helping him with?” Marco demanded, his voice low. “This … this pornography? This is what you are posing for?”
Still I did not speak.
Marco slammed his hand down on the dressing table, and the sharp noise made me jump again. “Is it?” he shouted. “You have been posing for him without your clothes on all this time?”
“I…” I began, not knowing what to say.
“Do not bother to deny it—I can see that this was drawn from life,” he said, brandishing the paper in my face. “I know your body, after all, do I not? I am your husband. I am the only one who has any right to see it. But now I see that I am a cuckold after all, and that this painter has drawn what he has intimate knowledge of, though he has no right.”
“How dare you,” I said, rising from my chair. “He has no such knowledge. I have posed for him, yes; and in the nude, yes; but I have not lain with him.”
But Marco seemed not to hear me. “You who were so high and mighty, who rejected Giuliano de’ Medici out of hand, and called me a pimp—you are a whore after all!” he cried. “One of the richest men in Florence was too good for you, it seems, so you have sullied yourself with a common artist from the gutter.”
“How dare you speak to me so!” I cried. “You are wrong, wrong about everything! Sandro is not my lover, we have never—”
“Oh, it is Sandro, is it?” he demanded. “You know him well enough to use his Christian name, at least.”
“Yes, I do, because he is my friend, as I told you,” I said. “I call Lorenzo de’ Medici by his Christian name; do you accuse me of taking him as a lover, as well? Do you think I am betraying you and my friend Clarice all at once?”
Marco shook his head wildly. “That is not the point. Dio mio, that you should still deny … when I have the evidence right in my hand…” He glared down at the sketch once more, then crumpled it in his fist.
“No!” I gasped, lurching toward him.
He drew away, staring at me in astonishment as he stepped back out into the bedchamber. “Your actions belie your words,” he said. “Can you truly not see that?” He opened his fist and looked at the now crushed drawing. “What woman lets a man other than her lover see her like this?”
“As incredible as it seems to you, it is true,” I shot back. “I would swear on whatever holy relic you want that I am not Sandro’s lover, Marco. Yet it does not seem that would help. You are determined to see me, your own wife, as a whore, even though I vow to you that it is otherwise!”
“Women are liars, all,” he growled. “It has been thus ever since Eve tempted Adam in the garden.”
I threw up my hands, nearly screaming in frustration. “Suddenly so pious, Marco! If you had had your way, I would have been a whore at your own hand long ago. And now you dare—”
“Enough!” he shouted, causing me to flinch. “I will not stand for you to speak to me so. This is how it shall be, Simonetta. Henceforth, you do not leave the house without an escort—either myself or my manservant. That maid of yours is not to be trusted; no doubt she has been assisting you in your harlotry all along.”
“Indeed!” I cried. “I will not be condescended and dictated to as though I were a senseless child! I am—”
“And most importantly,” he continued, “you are never to see that painter again, am I understood?”
“I will not—”
“You will do as I say!” Marco cut me off before I could go any further. “You have proven that you cannot be trusted, and so you will abide by my will as though it is law. I am your husband and I say that my word is the law.”