didn’t want one of yours. I wanted one of my own.’
‘Is it a boy or a girl?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘You didn’t check? Here. Let me look.’
Teresa handed her sister the child.
‘It’s a boy. He needs feeding.’ Francesca opened her blouse and took the baby to her breast. He drank noisily, hungrily. Teresa watched the child suck and felt the first stirrings of jealousy.
‘I always knew you would do something stupid.’
‘It’s not stupid. Look at him.’
‘You’ll have to pay me,’ Francesca demanded.
The two sisters looked at the child, feeding greedily, possessed by need. Teresa was surprised for the first time by the noise: the spluttering and the gasping, the desire and the power of a baby at the breast sucking for life itself. ‘Does it hurt?’ she asked.
‘Of course it does. But you get used to it. He’s feeding well. Then he’ll be sick.’
‘Sick?’
‘You’ve been spared all this: the milk and pain of motherhood, the jealous husband, the cries in the night. Disease. Illness. Death. What do you want a child for?’
‘Joy,’ said Teresa. ‘I want him for joy.’
Marco had drunk several flasks of wine by the time he rowed alongside the Fondamenta Santa Caterina to collect his wife. At times he could not believe that he was married to this woman. He wondered whether he should have wed her sister, a woman with plenty of flesh on her, proper breasts, firm hips, and a body in which a man could lose himself. But did he want all those babies and all that milk? He held his flask of wine aloft in greeting.
Teresa shivered nervously, and gave him a small wave. That is my husband, she thought, as if the events of the day had made them strangers both to the city and to each other. They had never looked as if they belonged together: Teresa thin, anxious, and bird-like; her husband broad, swarthy, and muscular, like Vulcan or some dark river god.
‘Did you watch?’ he asked.
Teresa had forgotten that she might have to lie. ‘There were so many people. And you were far away.’
‘I told you that you should have come with us.’
‘There was not room. It was for men. You know that.’
‘It would not have mattered.’
‘Did you see the Doge?’ asked Teresa.
‘I did. And he saw us. It was a triumph.’
As her husband recounted the story of the day, Teresa realised that she could not take in what he was saying. She could think only of the child. Perhaps she should tell him now, she thought, in this stillness, out in the lagoon. She should confess, or even shout out, that the baby was the only thing that mattered to her, more important than either his love or her own death.
She wondered what it would be like to tell him. She almost wanted to laugh with the joy of it all, sharing this new happiness with the man she loved. But she knew that Marco would be fearful, his mood would change, and that it would ruin the day. He would talk about money. He would ask her to take the child back. And he would not give the real reason for his fear: the fact that a son might change their marriage, that they would no longer be alone.
He put out a line and began to fish.
As the boat rocked on the water, Teresa remembered holding the child in her arms. Although she ached for him, she knew that she must hide the fact, as if the revelation of such a secret would only destroy its beauty.
At last there was movement on the line and Marco flicked up a sturgeon, its back gleaming against the dying light, twitching in midair before being cast down onto the floor of the boat.
‘E basta,’ Marco cried, still happy.
A wind started up, blowing across the lagoon. Teresa watched her husband pull in the line and begin to row harder for the island.
‘Did you gather the wood this morning?’ he asked.
Teresa knew the question mattered, but could not remember why. ‘Alder,’ she replied.
‘Enough for tonight and tomorrow?’
‘Plenty,’ Teresa answered.
‘Then I am happy.’
They tied up the sandolo, and Marco took his wife’s hand. Together they walked along the Fondamenta dei Vetrai, past the furnaces of each family of glass-makers, lined in rivalry and solidarity, until they reached their home, glowing against the impending night, the secret unspoken between them.
Teresa visited her sister every week. Francesca taught her to hold the baby, calm him when he cried, rock and console him. But Teresa didn’t need encouragement. As she held the boy she realised that not only was the child beginning to belong to her, but that she belonged to the child. She had given herself away.
‘You look as if you’ve never seen a baby before,’ her sister remarked.
‘I haven’t. Not like this.’
Teresa inspected every finger and toe. She felt the weight of her new son’s head, cupping it in her palm. His eyes stared away into the distance as if he had come from some other world and knew its secrets. How could she live with such a love? How could she ever do enough for him? What if he was too hot, too cold, too hungry, or too thirsty? How could she guard against fever? What if he fell sick? What if he died?
Soon Teresa could not bear to be apart from the boy. Only she loved him sufficiently to protect him from the perils of the earth. Only she knew what it was to truly love and care for him. The anxiety grew so strong that she began to panic every time she had to leave.
‘You love him too much,’ Francesca warned, but Teresa insisted, ‘One can never love too much.’
Her sister could not agree. ‘You can. Believe me.’
Teresa could sense her disapproval.
‘You had freedom. Why lose it?’ Francesca continued.
‘Because I need to love.’
‘And the child?’
‘The child would have died.’
‘The hospital would have taken him.’
‘You know that’s a lie. And if they had … You know what happens. They never live.’
Francesca dismissed her sister. ‘It’s only a child.’
‘What?’
‘Some live, some die.’
‘How can you be so heartless?’
