The Bellini Card

57

Maria awoke to the dark. It was almost her element, as if she had lived for so long without light that darkness could no longer shock her. It could no longer make her weep.

She moved her arms, flexed her fingers. Her wrists began to burn: perhaps that was a sign that they were healing, too.

For a while she sensed nothing more than the strange scatterings of color that formed and reformed in the darkness, like evanescent patterns in oily water. But then, very distinctly, she heard the scrape of bolts being drawn back and then the creaking of the door.

Her heart went to her mouth, and then-nothing happened.

She was aware of a new smell. She sat up in the dark and felt someone or something feel her feet.

It was a hand, a human hand-and then another hand came around to meet hers and in it was something that smelled sweeter than she could have possibly imagined.

She took the bread and crammed it into her mouth.

They might take it back, at any time. It might be a trick, like the water they had poured across her breasts.

But why, she wondered, was there no light?

And then, slowly and wonderingly, she became aware of the smell of roses.

“Grazie,” she whispered. “Per il pane-grazie, caro.”

“It’s nothing. Can you walk?”

“Yes.”

“Let’s get you home.”