Water of Giulia

Caderra did well to marry a lawmaker. A girl from a respectable family in Naples, she moved to Rome with a man she’d known two days before marrying. Embarrassingly wealthy in terms of gold and gut, he was well-known throughout Rome and assisted in bringing potential laws forth to the Secretariat. This rendered him a very rich man, with which Caderra could live quite comfortably. 

 However, she was accursed with the disease of cleverness, and unfortunately aware of her potential autonomy. In her youth she provided him with several children, a warm home, and supper every night, she quickly realized that the dreaminess and fulfillment she was told she’d achieve through wifehood was largely oversold. She felt hungry. 

She was a curious girl in childhood, fond of mathematics and astronomy. She drew maps of the stars on the roof of her family’s palazzo at night, charting their movement and glow. At the age of fourteen she owned an impressive collection of maps, all drawn by her, but that she could do nothing with, because no one would evaluate them or teach her of astronomy on a scholarly level. Instead she was expected to dedicate her time to her beauty and household skills, which she did, only to starve still. 

It was a fine June morning when Caderra padded on bare feet through the palazzo foyer, the nurse tending to the children and her husband off at the bulletin office to announce his new campaign. She didn’t know what the campaign was about yet, but he seemed quite enthusiastic and promised to reveal it that night at the announcement party. 

But pushing her wifely duties to the side for the moment, and while she had time to herself, she entered the study. Her maps lay discreetly rolled in a basket in the corner, but she did not pick them up. Rather, she reached for a large book which she had been chewing through while she had moments like these, alone. It was a detailed encyclopedia of constellations and the astronomers who discovered them. All bearded and old and privileged enough to have learned to read and chart. 

She turned a thick page when, in her movement, her elbow knocked an open drawer in the desk. A pile of scrolls which she hadn’t previously seen poked out. She curiously picked one up and unrolled it. 

Curing the disease that has plagued our women: school, sport, and loneliness.

Caderra fumed. The essay detailed an elaborate series of bans to be enacted into law, preventing girls from learning to read or participate in the arts. Every aspect of it enraged her, these gross ideas written by a man who would be without legacy or children if it weren’t for her. Her jaw clenched as she stared at the handwriting, fat globs of ink carelessly staining the parchment. 

She stood and threw open the doors of the study to stomp through the foyer and out on the road. Only paces away was the home of a young widow called Maria, peeking out of the morning haze like a temple of justice. Caderra appeared mad as she pounded on the heavy doors of the home. 

A nurse opened them with a bewildered look, taking in the sight of Caderra in her lounging clothes. The open door revealed the large entrance hall, bloated in its grandeur and visually crippled by excessive amounts of gold and marble. “May I help you, miss?”

“Fetch me the lady of the house,” she said at once. 

The nurse nodded and shuffled quickly through the house, her dress swishing at her ankles as she hopped up the stairs. Moments later, she returned with the young and beautiful Maria. 

“Mrs. Giordano?” Maria chuckled lightly. “What a state you’re in. Are you quite alright?”

“You have fooled the town, but not me,” Caderra said darkly. “I know it is through unnatural means that you find yourself the owner of your late husband's wealth.”

Maria’s smile faded and she looked rather pale. She waved Caderra to a delicate divan near a large marble pillar and smoothed the back of her dress before she sat, expecting Caderra to do the same. Caderra instead made use of her legs and stood tensely over Maria. 

“You accuse me of something very grave…” she murmured. 

“It is no more an accusation than truth spoken,” Caderra retorted. “How did you do it?”

Maria’s brow furrowed and she glanced up to Caderra, color returning to her face. Her gaze turned scrutinizing as she looked upon Caderra’s face, until at last she seemed satisfied and to her servants whispered, “Leave us.”

The nurses scurried from the room like slugs from salt–with a slowness that belied the pain they may have found themselves in if they stayed. Once certain they were alone, Maria spoke again.

“Do you…desire a life such as mine?” she asked carefully.

“I do,” Caderra replied softly. 

Maria smiled, one of satisfaction and just a touch of wicked amusement. “Then a life such as mine you will have. Stay, have tea, and I will call upon my doctor.”

Caderra’s brow cinched, but she trusted Maria to resolve her predicament. She felt a strange excitement at the thought of bringing justice to the man she wasted her youth on, who took for granted his daughters and regarded them in the same manner one might regard livestock, who entitled himself to a wife to lay with as he pleased, and who now desired to take what little skills girls could still learn away. He deserved, more than anyone, the cold embrace of soil.

In an hour the nurse who Maria sent to fetch the doctor returned with an older woman, dressed scandalously in silks and much jewelry. She approached the women lazily, with a hum of some strange energy about her. Embarrassingly, Caderra thought it was magic before she identified it as simple confidence. 

“I am Giulia,” she said clearly, standing level with the other women. 

“Caderra. I hear…you can help me resolve a problem I have,” said Caderra carefully. 

Giulia smirked and glided about the hall, her playful eyes moving over Caderra. She held a thin pipe and sucked on it as she regarded the wife. “I can,” she spoke through the opium-smoke. 

Following the exchange of two pounds of florins and a small bag of piastras stored from her childhood, Caderra was presented with a small glass vial. She stared at it and puzzled.

“Put it in his wine,” Giula prompted. “Just a bit will do the trick, but if you want to be sure there’s no harm in using the entire thing.” Then she added with an amused laugh, “Rather, there is!”

Caderra nodded, clutching the steeply expensive bottle and quickly hiding it in her dress. She thanked Giulia and Maria many times before leaving, by which time it was noon and she had two hours to prepare for the arrival of her husband and the subsequent party. 

She paced. Afternoon was a bit early for the husband to ask for wine, but too late for ale. She squandered the hours with her puzzling until she heard the man come home. 

She calmly descended the steps to greet him, offering him hellos and kisses on the cheek. He began to drabble on about his grand party and the campaign he would reveal that night. She listened with less interest than a goldfish may have in air. 

Then she passed a little pot she received as a gift from her father when he came back from his travels in India. It had stood there untouched for ages, until she suddenly reached for it. 

“What is that?” asked the husband.

“A drink. A new type of drink,” she said eagerly. “It’s from the east, called tea. Would you like to try it?”

The husband gazed on with a hesitant expression. “I suppose.”

“Wonderful!” She quickly put on a pot of water and enthusiastically prepared the drink, at the same time insisting that her husband sit and make himself comfortable. While his back was turned, she phished the vial out of her dress and popped the cork off. The liquid was colorless and scentless and mixed with the tea smoothly. She exhaled shakily as she looked at the brew. 

“It’s finished,” she said as she returned with a clay cup full. She set it carefully on the table in front of him and stared with overwhelming interest as he took a tentative sip. He coughed, setting the cup down swiftly as he sputtered. 

“No, no, you must drink it all. It will develop in flavor. Trust me,” she said, practically tipping the cup toward his lips. 

He tried to respond, but wheezed unattractively as he watched his wife. His eyes became bloodshot and bulged while a hand grasped his aching throat. He rasped, any speech dying in the air and presenting itself as a weak rattle. Then his eyelids spasmed and he fell back against the chair, utterly still. 

With cruel efficiency, Caderra removed the cup and boiled it well before sauntering upstairs to change into an evening gown. At four o’clock, the first guests arrived. She greeted them at the door and exchanged the required pleasantries, before they requested to see her husband.

“I’ll fetch him for you,” she said kindly, walking calmly toward the dining room. Before she even entered, she shrieked horribly and fell to her knees. The guests raced inside the house and gasped at the scene. 

She sobbed into her hands, collapsed against the floor as the guests squeezed her shoulders and tried to calm her. 

“What will I do?!” she cried. “Oh, my husband! We must begin funeral preparations! Oh, his work, his laws!”

“What was his law? The campaign he wanted to announce?” asked a guest next to her.

She sniffled and rubbed her eyes. “Oh, all he wanted to do was allow girls to go to school, to learn to read and write…”

The guest breathed out softly. “A noble cause that will further the success of Italy,” he said. “We will bring this law to the Secretariat, to honor him.”

She sniffed again, looking up from her hands. “Please. It’s what he would have wanted…”