Daughter of Venice Read Online Free

now.
    Mother’s face is quiet, but I can guess she’s made the same calculation I have, for she puts down her bobbin. “I’ll go ask Cook to gather the herbs. You find the widest-brimmed hat in the house.”
    Andriana stands with a smile. “Thank you, Mother. And ask Cook for lemons, no? I’ve heard lemons make the herbs work better.”
    “Get to work, you three,” Mother says distractedly to the rest of us.
    The world of Mother’s childhood has been swept away. But that’s all right, because I’d like to know about the present, too. Some of my friends bleach their hair, it’s true, but I’ve never been there when anyone did it. “Can’t we see first?” I ask. “We could help Andriana find the right hat, at least.”
    “All right. Go help your sister.” Mother rushes to the kitchen.
    We girls race upstairs to the
piano nobile
—the noble floor—where our parents’ bedchamber and all the girls’ bedchambers are. It turns out that Andriana secretly chose the hat last night. And she already cut a hole in the top of it with a knife she snatched from the kitchen after dinner. Everything about the way she acts now is strange—sure and independent. The authority in her voice excites me as she explains what we each have to do.
    Andriana dips her hair into the large bowl of fresh bathwater sitting on the floor in her room. Paolina holds the hat upside down, at the ready. Now Andriana stands and bends over the hat, letting her hair fall loose in front of her. Laura and I tuck and carefully pull Andriana’s hair through the hole in the hat.
    “It’s all in,” I say.
    “Stand back.” Andriana straightens up, flinging her hair, so that it flops over the edges of the hat. She goes to the balcony and sits with her back to the sun, her face and neck shaded by that wide brim.
    Paolina spreads Andriana’s hair evenly in every direction.
    Mother comes out holding a bowl of fragrant herb paste. She has on a wide-brimmed hat herself. “Don’t stand in the sun without a parasol,” she says to no one in particular.
    We get our parasols and run back to the balcony.
    Mother smears the herb paste along the locks of Andriana’s hair, moving from the scalp to the tips. It glistens green and bright yellow. I sniff several times. Ginger, I think. And juniper? Perhaps that brassy yellow is Spanish saffron. Translucent blobs of lemon pulp cling to Andriana’s hair here and there like tiny baubles.
    The assurance in Mother’s actions surprises me, just like Andriana’s assurance in having the hat ready. No one has ever bleached their hair in this house, so far as I know. Yet Mother clearly has experience in this task. Did she and her sisters do this when they were girls?
    Mother had only two sisters, and both of them died in the smallpox outbreak that left Uncle Umberto blind. It happened at their summer home in Treviso. Mother and her other brothers were lucky enough not to have joined the others at Treviso yet. I watch Mother now for signs of sad memories. But her face shows nothing but concentration on the job.
    Andriana’s hair isn’t really dark. It’s light brown. Nowhere near as dark as Laura’s and mine. Paolina’s hair is even darker—the color of summer nights. This paste would never work on any of us, I bet.
    “You’ve seen all there is to see.” Mother gestures toward the inside of the room. “Go on back to work. The three of you can do at least half the spool.”
    We go back to the workroom slowly. Even Laura takes her time. We pick up the bobbins and walk round and round the giant spool.
    “Francesco? Is that you?” calls Paolina. She was the one to call out, but we all heard the footsteps.
    Francesco comes into the room. “Working, my lovelies?” He smiles. “Where’s your big sister?”
    “Getting herself beautiful,” says Paolina.
    “Is the Lando son looking for a wife?” asks Laura.
    Francesco shrugs. “I don’t know.” He turns to leave.
    “Tell us a story before you go.” I