Immortal (26 page)

“If I am going to transmigrate to be with a woman, it will not be for Grazia. She is lovely, but she is not the one, The One. Do you understand, Wanderer? The One who was promised me. Promised, during that crazy night of visions inspired by the philosopher’s stone with you and Geber! I have saved my heart for that promise!”

“Saved your heart or hidden your heart?” he asked. It was the question which seemed to have awakened me, and I couldn’t answer it. So we continued in silence until we reached a Catalan ship, where we were taken aboard and treated as royalty.

I WAS BACK IN FLORENCE.
Florence: the center of the world, the city which inspired madrigals to sing of its silver walls, declared by a Pope to be the fifth element of the cosmos. Of course the city was scorching. Under the summer sun, the gray stones heated up and baked the streets like an oven. And naturally the plague was about. Still, I was home. I was breathing Florence’s air, smiling at her fashionably dressed women. I would dine on bread-and-bean soup, fresh spinach sautéed in Tuscan olive oil, and roast beef on the bone. I was going to salute the city’s health with the noble wine of Montepulciano. I was walking through the Oltrarno, marveling at the many new palazzi built for wealthy merchants and guildsmen. Via San Niccolo, which connected Porta San Giorgio with Porta San Niccolo, was built up almost to a solid facade of brick and stucco without a breach. The dwellings were high and narrow, rising four or five stories, and deeper than they were wide, as was common. The streets were still a vibrant mélange of palazzo and cottage, of cloth factory and bottega, of church and monastery. Stone-masons and shoemakers rubbed shoulders with bankers and traders, artisans and prostitutes. The plague cast a lull over the street, but it wasn’t as desolate as the first time the Black Death had swept through the stone walls. People had learned they could not hide when death stalked them.

I came to the Jewish enclave and made my way to the Sfornos’ carved
portone,
the massive recessed door to their home. I knocked with the brass knocker and a moment later, a hunched-over grandmotherly woman opened the door. “Luca!” she trilled.

“Rebecca?” I asked, with some hesitation.

“But of course.” She laughed. “Come in, get out of the street before the plague finds you, and let me look at you.” She tugged on my sleeve and I stepped into the foyer, which was much the same as the first time I’d entered this house, more than fifty years ago. Rebecca stood close, smiling up at me. Her curly hair was white now, her face deeply seamed, but her eyes were as clear and joyful as ever and her voice did not quaver. I could feel the vibrance and sweetness of the young girl whom I had first seen clasped in her father’s arms, ducking away from murderous stones. I wondered what it was like for her to see her old friend still young. I wondered if it would make her envy or hate me. My differentness from her would be all the more apparent, and it made me more alien to her than even Gentile was from Jew.

“I came as soon as I received your letter,” I said, feeling tentative. I looked past her to see if Rachel was inside this house, even though I knew Rachel must have her own home.

“You must have flown here,” she marveled. “Where is our old friend the Wanderer?”

“Tormenting someone else with his questions.” I smiled, shrugging. “He disappeared the moment we came through the city gates.”

“Isn’t that just like him, coming and going when he’s not expected!” Rebecca grabbed a fistful of my sleeve and tugged happily. “I am so glad to see you. I knew you’d come, even though we hadn’t heard from you in so many, many years!”

“Of course I’ve come,” I said softly, moved and pleased by her welcome.

“Grandmother, who is it?” asked an unsmiling young man, who came into the foyer and gave me a hard stare. He was tall, taller than me, broad-shouldered and strong, with dark curly hair and a long oval face whose high cheekbones reminded me of Leah Sforno. He narrowed his blue eyes at me, scanned me up and down.

“This is Luca.” Rebecca smiled. “The one who saved me and then was trained by Papa as a physico! I asked him to come heal your brother and sister, to give them his consolamentum!”

“Really?” the boy grunted. “He’ll be hungry. Why don’t we show him to the table?”

“Of course, Aaron, you’re right,” Rebecca said, her face lighting up. “How silly of me to stand here gawking. Come, Luca, you must remember where the table is!” Spry and giggly, she darted down the hall. I followed, but the boy stopped me with a hand on my shoulder.

“If you are who she claims you are, then there is unholy magic involved, and you are a golem, with parents who are demons,” he said in a low voice. “If you are not him, which is what I think, then you are an adventurer trying to get money from an old woman with a weak mind.”

“I don’t need her money,” I said, pulling away. “I came to help your brother and sister.”

“My brother and sister are beyond help,” he said. “I buried them a week ago. And Great-Aunt Miriam, and my parents, and my aunt Ruth, Miriam’s daughter. The plague struck us hard this time, perhaps because it spared us all the other times. Grandmother and I are the only ones left. She can’t remember that, though, so don’t tell her. It would only upset her.”

“I would not cause her pain,” I said, saddened. I went into the dining salon and sat on the old bench and let Rebecca fuss over me. She put down a plate of cool boiled chicken and a fried artichoke and poured me a cup of white wine. As she bustled around, she touched my hair and pinched my cheek. Aaron stood in the doorway, arms folded, staring balefully.

“Tell me, what’s the news with Rachel?” I inquired, my heart racing suddenly.

“Rachel, Rachel. She left, she’s been gone,” Rebecca said, drooping.

Aaron shook his head at me, and asked Rebecca to get some bread. When she left, he said, “My great-aunt left this house decades ago. I heard from Miriam that it was a month after you left. She thought Rachel had gone after you. Everyone was scandalized.” His eyes were cold on my face.

“I never saw her again,” I said, looking away, wondering what had happened to Rachel. Did she still live somewhere with friends? Had she had a husband and children and a full life somewhere outside Florence? I hoped so; Rachel deserved happiness. It occurred to me that she could also be dead, that she could have died alone in some strange place. Sorrow sat heavily on my heart as I remembered the spirited young Rachel with her quick mind, sharp tongue, forthright ways, and beautiful strong-boned face. I remembered her tenderness as we’d held each other. I hoped that she was vigorous and beloved somewhere, and if not, that she’d had a good death, an easy death, and that the Wanderer would say she was alive when she died, as her father had been. It occurred to me that this unexplained longevity of mine wasn’t necessarily a gift. I still carried the hungry streets and the brothel within me like a living homunculus always looking for more, but somehow, along the way, despite my roaming, I was accumulating people to care for, and I was going to watch them die.

Chapter
14

I STAYED FOR A FEW NIGHTS
in the Sfornos’ barn, though now Rebecca had a different last name. The place was the same, and the resident cat was an orange tomcat who sat in the rafters, flicking his tail and watching me with unblinking amber eyes. The space in the wall where I had secreted my Giotto panel was still there. I had to examine it, and I found in it a wooden doll that must have been hidden there by a child. I chuckled to think that some young Sforno girl had discovered my hiding place and used it; my old secrets were always being discovered. I spent a lot of time with Rebecca, who was alternately lucid and dreamy. Sometimes she would ask me the same questions over and over, “Did you just return, Luca? Have you eaten?” When she repeated herself, I would hold her hand and talk about the old days, and she would slowly come back to the present, or as much of it as she could tolerate, with her sisters, her children, and most of her grandchildren dead of the plague. It was a bittersweet time that wrung my heart in unexpected ways. Then I had a day that sent me into hiding again, this time for sixty years.

The day started and ended with confrontation, and during the middle, there was death, as in so many of my days. At dawn, Aaron entered into the barn with a braying donkey following him. “A friend of mine kept this mangy beast while I cared for my family. He belongs to you.”

“No,” I groaned. I sat up and rubbed hay out of my hair. “He belongs to the Wanderer!”

“Family legend says he’s yours and you’ll claim him—if you are who you say you are. So here’s your noble steed, and don’t let us keep you from your journey.” Aaron spoke with cold purpose and a determined thrust of his stubborn young chin.

“I haven’t upset your grandmother.”

“Yes, you have,” he said firmly. “She’s in a ferment, with her memory all jumbled up and time looping around on her. You have the same face as a man she knew in her childhood—”

“I am that man,” I said quietly.

“Perhaps the Red Feather should hear about it,” Aaron said tightly. “They’re looking for witches and prodigies. A Jew who turns one in would curry favor for the entire community. We need as much goodwill as we can get. Jews are the first people blamed for the city’s troubles!”

“I’ll be out of this barn today.”

“Take the animal. It’s older than I am, but the thing won’t die. I don’t want it in my family’s stable,” he said. “If they come looking for sorcery, they could come to our door to ask about it, and it won’t go well for us. That murderous confraternity is intent upon mayhem.” He paused for a moment. “They might even have their sights on us already. Miriam told me of a rumor that Rachel was taken in by Nicolo Silvano, who kept her prisoner and then beat her to death some years later.”

I was stricken and stared at Aaron in shock and horror. Was this possible? What could have been Rachel’s reason for leaving her family and falling into such a terrible fate? What had happened to Rachel that she would willingly go to Nicolo Silvano? Had I somehow done something to her? I felt a terrible unease and guilt. “I never heard such a thing.”

“My great-aunt never told her parents, and only told me on her deathbed. It surely has something to do with Silvano’s enmity with you. You’ve caused this family enough misery. Get out before you bring more to us.” He tossed the lead rope at me, turned on his heel, and strode out.

A FEW HOURS LATER,
under the vibrant blue sky of the morning harvest sun that had not yet risen far above the horizon, with a light breeze ruffling my mantello, I went walking with the donkey through Florence. I was looking for an open boardinghouse with a stable. Because of the plague, most hotels were closed. Foreigners weren’t welcome when the Black Death was about. Much had changed in Florence, and, at the same time, much hadn’t.

I led the donkey in desultory fashion across the Ponte Vecchio, where all of the little shops were closed, then I ambled toward the city center. I was aimless, brimming with a dozen contradictory feelings. I was happy to be back in Florence, and sorry to have bade farewell to Rebecca Sforno. I would never see her again. I wondered what had happened to Rachel and if I had one more thing to feel guilty about. I had thought that I’d pick up the threads of my old relationship with the Sfornos as a woman picks up the pattern again when she sits back down at her loom, and I was wrong. Time as I lived it was different from how it was for others. I didn’t want to see the consequences of that, but the consequences were there, ineluctable, making me feel melancholy and alien even as I rejoiced in my return to my incomparable Florence. And then there was the rumor about Rachel, which left me feeling queasy and sick about her possible fate. It renewed my old fury toward Nicolo Silvano.

A well-dressed boy ran awkwardly toward me, his eyes wide and his face pale. There was something strange about the fearful way he moved, so I glanced around to see what was alarming him. Two beefy-looking, dirty-bearded men in coarse, torn farsetto came barreling after him. Days of the plague always brought out criminals, who rightly suspected that there were fewer ufficiali to patrol the streets when citizens were dying en masse. The boy stumbled across my path and I threw my arm around him and tossed him up onto the donkey. I never could bear to watch a child get hurt, and it was clear that the ruffians meant to do him harm.

“Please, they’re going to hurt me,” the boy squeaked. I held my finger to my lips and sang a loud, raucous song and bobbled on my feet as if drunk. The two ruffians slowed to a swagger. With gusto, I screeched out lyrics about a bosomy Napolitano woman and my extraordinary prowess as her paramour.

“The boy is coming with us,” one of them said, as they got closer. I sang louder and swayed, gestured broadly in front of me with the hand holding the lead rope while my other hand snuck around to pull out the dagger I kept strapped on my thigh under my lucco. I didn’t go for my short sword, my
squarcina,
because that would have been too obvious.

“And she loved my MASSIVE tool so she never EVER denied me her favors,” I bawled, easing the dagger out of its sheath and holding it behind me.

“Look, he’s drunk,” the other ruffian said, sneering. “You knock him down and I’ll grab the boy!” The first ruffian smirked and reached for me. I twisted as if intoxicated, kicking the donkey while I seemed to fall at the ruffian. The man made a soft grunt of surprise as my dagger found him in the center of his chest. I twisted the handle and pulled it out even as he toppled over. The second man turned to see why his comrade had grunted. He barely had time to utter an exclamation when my dagger caught his Adam’s apple. I stabbed quickly, and just as quickly withdrew the blade. The lout fell, and I wiped off the knife on his muddy mantello and left them where they lay. The becchini who came for the plague victims would add these two to their biers.

“They deserved to die. They were going to kidnap me,” the boy said fiercely, in a high, sweet voice. I looked at him and nodded. He was a thin, sallow child with fine light brown hair and an angular nose, not comely, but with an honest, quiet mien that gave him poise beyond his years. The donkey calmed and the boy started to dismount, but I stopped him.

“I’ll take you to your family,” I said, “you can ride.” He smiled, and light came into his serious face. “Where to?” I asked. The boy pointed in the direction of the Baptistery, so we set off toward the domed octagonal structure that was the very heart of Florence. All at once I was hungry to see the Baptistery, with its harmonious geometrical forms in green and white marble. It had been decades since I had feasted my eyes on the south doors with their exquisite sculpted panels of the life of St. John. They were designed by Andrea Pisano in 1330, cast in bronze in Venice, and fit on the southern entrance in 1336, back when I was still a boy in the city.

“They planned to ransom me back to my father, he’s very rich,” the boy said.

I looked at the boy’s clean face, well-kempt hair, and precisely cut clothes. “He’d have paid.”

The boy nodded. “And they’d have killed me anyway. That’s the problem with having money; people want to take it from you. It’s best to stay out of sight if you’re very rich.”

“Perhaps so, if people know you’re very rich.” I shrugged.

“But then what do you do if you stay inside all the time?” he asked, as if posing a question of weighty philosophical import.

“I had a friend who told me to read and study the great men of the past, the ancient Greek and Latin thinkers who were very wise about the nature of man,” I said.

“Yes, that makes sense, to learn of the nature of man from the ancient masters,” the boy said, in a considering tone. I smothered a grin lest it offend his dignity, which was very great. Petrarca would have liked this young boy. Petrarca had been disappointed in his own son, who was intelligent but not bookish; this solemn, thoughtful boy in front of me had the affect of a scholar, and would have pleased him. “What’s your name?” the boy asked.

“Luca Bastardo.”

“My father knows a man who is on the council that is the Six of Commerce, who might be Gonfaloniere soon and who is friendly with the Podestà, and once I heard that man tell my father that he had been looking for someone named Luca Bastardo all his life.”

“Ugly man, with a skinny nose like this”—I made a peaked gesture with my fingers—“and a chin that sticks out?”

The child nodded. “My father called him Domenico. Are you his Luca Bastardo?”

“No relation,” I said shortly, concealing my alarm. I glanced around warily. So Domenico Silvano, despite being the grandson of a brothel keeper, had come up in the world. He had power and influence. He was serving on the prestigious Six of Commerce; he might be elected Gonfaloniere, the head of the Signoria that governed Florence; he was friendly with the Podestà, the chief of justice in the city. Nicolo Silvano had indeed seized the opportunities presented by the plague to improve his family’s fortunes, as he’d said he would so long ago, and his son, Domenico, was reaping the benefits. The Confraternity of the Red Feather must have aided him in his ambitions, as it was favorably looked on by the Church. I changed the subject. “What’s your name?”

“Cosimo,” he answered sonorously, squaring his little shoulders. At that moment the donkey decided to sit on its hindquarters, so that the boy almost tumbled off. I caught him and steadied him, and he smiled at me. I tugged the donkey’s tail to get it to stand, which it did, reluctantly. We had arrived at the Baptistery, and I looked around covertly for anyone with a red feather tied to his farsetto or lucco. Seeing no one, I stopped in front of Pisano’s beautiful bronze doors, each with fourteen square panels. Of the twenty-eight panels, twenty showed the life of St. John the Baptist, and the other eight showed the virtues: Hope, Faith, Charity, Humility, Fortitude, Temperance, Justice, and Prudence, all the great qualities to which Florence aspired but failed miserably to attain. The most laughably failed virtue had to be Temperance; Florence was always a city that violently took both sides of an issue. But to have these ideals before our eyes, expressed in sculpted figures that moved like real people dressed in draperies that fell convincingly like folds of real fabric around their bodies, made it plausible that Florentines could embody them.

“Your eyes are wet,” the boy said. He had clambered down from the donkey and stood next to me. He took my hand in his small one.

“The most important thing is art, the beauty that art shows,” I said reverently. “That’s the only heaven that we can glimpse. If there’s such a thing as grace, it’s in the work of these great Masters: Pisano, Giotto, Cimabue….”

The boy stared at the panel of the “Naming of the Baptist.” “That’s the Virgin who presents the babe for naming; I can tell it’s her by her halo.” I nodded, and the boy mused, “It is a great honor for the Baptist that the Mother of Christ presents him. It gives him a higher status.”

“I never thought of that,” I admitted. “But look how she bends so tenderly over the child, as she would for any child, since she’s the mother of the world. And look how strong her shoulders and arms look under her robes, so she can bear the world’s suffering.”

“Yes, I see that,” he said, in the wondering voice of one who newly understood something. “In this panel, John baptizing Christ, the angel is struck with awe, and he’s the only one watching, so it makes us think how holy the moment is! And here, Christ speaking to John’s disciples, he blesses them sweetly with his hand, but he has no halo, because the disciples haven’t yet realized what John realizes, that Christ is the savior! In a moment, they’ll understand that, and everything will change!”

“You have eyes for seeing art, Cosimo.” I smiled. “Go look at Giotto’s paintings in Santa Croce. They’ll amaze you.”

“Giotto’s paintings are as beautiful as these?” He indicated the panels.

“Giotto was the teacher of this sculptor, and his paintings are sublime, almost too beautiful to believe,” I said. “Florence would not be what she is without Giotto’s paintings and Pisano’s reliefs, without all the great artists who come here to make the city rich with color and form and texture, to fill the city with beauty that the rest of the world envies.”

Cosimo drew me around the Baptistery and pointed at the north doors. “Why don’t we have something beautiful on these doors, too? We should have equally grand doors here!”

“Because it must be paid for,” an energetic voice said, “and because an artist must be found to do as exquisite a job as Pisano, and how could we pick the artist?” It was a stoutish young man with a round face who addressed us. He looked not even twenty yet, but his hair was already thinning. I perused his dress for a telltale red feather, but didn’t spy one. The young man bowed slightly. “I saw you two admiring Pisano’s doors. Their beauty breaks my heart!”

“With the plague about, there’s plenty of idle time for everyone except becchini,” I said.

“I come here despite having work to finish.” He grinned. “I am Lorenzo.”

“I have a little brother named Lorenzo. I am Cosimo,” the boy told him, sounding at once both lofty and sensible, a neat trick.