Free The Passion of Artemisia by Susan Vreeland Page B

appetite?
    A surprising, furtive spasm quivered in me, and an involuntary squeezing deep inside. He turned me how he wanted me and rocked me, soothing me into compliance until I pushed the agony of Eve to the back of my mind and a sweeter agony took over. Afterward we slept as one.

    Months later, alone one morning, I was cleaning brushes in turpentine and a wave of nausea rushed over me. The smell was overpowering. I opened the windows but I couldn’t stand up a moment longer to breathe the fresh air. It wasn’t fresh anyway. It smelled of the river. I sank into a chair and gripped the arms. My mouth tasted awful. The room blurred. I rushed to get a basin, and threw up.
    I had expected blood for more than a month, maybe two. Even though I had known it would probably happen, I wasstunned by the reality. A baby. It made me anxious. What if Pietro . . . ? I didn’t even want to frame the thought into words.
    Had my own mother felt this strange dizziness, this swelling—not just in the belly but in the throat and behind the eyes—the moment she suspected? But she had died in childbirth in a bed full of blood and screams. I was twelve and terrified. I had seen it all. I was enraged at father for killing her, or so it seemed to me, and silent for months until Paola’s and Graziela’s love slowly dissolved my stupor and I began to live again.
    I couldn’t allow myself to think about that. I wanted a child, and wanted Pietro to want one too. I wouldn’t tell him just yet. Not until I was certain.
    Every day, the same thing happened—throwing up at turpentine, even linseed oil. I couldn’t mix my paints. But in the evenings, I felt fine. A couple weeks later, I seemed to feel a thickening and there was a definite tenderness in my breasts. It had to be.
    That meant there were things to do. I washed my face, dressed, tied my hair in a knot and, on this important day, secured it with my mother’s hair ornament. I rolled up my Susanna and my Judith and my Woman Playing a Lute and fastened them with a ribbon. I didn’t know when my belly would swell, and presenting myself as a painter soon to be a mother would either be incomprehensible or laughable to some people. I had wanted to show the academy four completed canvases, and though I’d finished Judith , I had no other full-size paintings. I had some studies, but because I hadn’t been painting from a model, they had no individuality.
    â€œWhether I’m ready or not, it has to be now,” I told Pietro.
    He knew why I was rolling the canvases. The Accademia.We had talked about it before, but because it wasn’t easy to share the intimacy of my hope, I hadn’t said much.
    â€œWhy now?”
    â€œThere’s a reason. I’ll tell you tomorrow. I promise.”
    He gave me a dark look that I didn’t understand. I opened the door, wondering if I was making a mistake.
    â€œTell me now.”
    If I did, he might not let me go. I wanted the two things, the academy and a baby, to be separate in his mind. I had to cajole him. I set the roll of canvases down by the door and bent over him where he sat, threading my fingers through his curly hair the way he liked. I kissed him on the ear and whispered, “It’s a surprise. Just for you.” He reached for me in a playful way but I dodged him, grabbed the canvases, and slipped out the door.
    At the gate downstairs, I looked for good omens to reassure me. The geranium had exploded with scarlet blossoms. A chittering pair of finches in our fig tree urged me on. So did the bells of Santa Croce. The sky spread out in pale azure, smooth as spun silk. The air itself was sun-soaked and golden. Everything seemed laden with blessings.
    With my canvases tucked under my arm, and a child in my belly, I stepped out into the street, into the throng of bakers’ boys balancing boards on their heads to carry loaves of bread, handcarts piled with figs and