The Secret Book of Grazia dei Rossi (18 page)

12

F
oul weather, double-dealing barge captains, rapacious innkeepers, treacherous waterways — these are but a few of the conditions of the journey from Ferrara to Bologna that have been known to reduce strong men to tears. They say there is not a captain on the Reno canal who will budge from his moorings until every cubit of deck space is covered by the behind of a paying customer. I had heard tales of travelers forced to sit out days in the foul inns of Malalbergo (well named) until their vessel was full up. Not to mention the wicked currents of the Reno canal and the treacherous mud flats of the Ferrarese marshes into which whole boatloads of passengers have been known to sink without a trace. Yet to us those treacherous marshes presented their most benign aspect that day, a thick greenish-gold carpet of undulating reeds as far as the eye could see, crisscrossed by narrow waterways that seemed to be incised on the marsh like
graffiti
patterns.

And the very moment our mule train reached the terminus of the canal at Malalbergo and clambered up the slippery bank onto the barge mooring, we were hailed by a captain eager to be on his way who needed just four more passengers to make up his complement. And there we were, Papa, Jehiel, myself, and Gershom’s wet nurse. (Gershom, a baby, rode free.) In that happy event, we embarked on our journey along the notorious canal, where the pilgrims’ motto is: “Every man for himself and God against us all.”

But God took pity on us that day. At the first sluicegate, where the passengers are forced to debark with all their baggage while the barge is hauled through the gate by a team of horses, one of the passengers actually offered to help with our boxes. And this priest continued to act as our porter throughout the voyage. He was a true Christian.

Another remarkable surprise. When little Gershom began to wail, a Lombard merchant sitting near us wet his own shirttail with his own wine so the babe could suck some comfort from it. (And you know the Lombards are not known for their generosity.)

As we skimmed along the Corticella road on the final lap of our journey to Bologna, Jehiel stood up in the hired wagon and announced that our period of misfortune was over. “Our guiding planet has come to rest in a new, serene orbit,” he augured with supreme confidence. And I believed him.

He was the one who first spotted signs of the city. “Look, Grazia! Look, Papa! Crooked towers! They tilt like men walking on stilts.” And to be sure the towers that thrust up crookedly into the sky did resemble stilt-walkers with their bases swathed in mist and their tops emerging out of the fog all askew.

At a distance, the red brick of the buildings made Bologna look like a city on fire — not so much blazing as glowing, the way embers do. The closer we got, the warmer it seemed. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Places in which we have been miserable, no matter how gorgeous, appear cold and lifeless in retrospect. Places that offered us comfort, solace, and hope take on an air of beauty. So it was with me and Bologna.

Such bustle. Such shouting. So much laughter. Even Papa regained some of his spirit as we rode through the teeming streets. Every day was like this in Bologna, he explained, it being the seat of a great university — in fact, the mother of all universities. There were upwards of five thousand students living there. And they were the cause of the shouting and japing in the streets. Students were the main clientele of the dei Rossi
banco
, he added, temporary impoverishment being their natural condition. But they looked so gay in their colorful clothes and so free that I longed to be one of them and to share in that carefree life, impoverished or not.

“Could I?” I asked Papa. “Could I someday be a student?”

For answer, he pointed into the crowd jostling us from all sides. “Look carefully at the students, Grazia. What do you see?”

“These students are all boys,” Jehiel interposed. “And you can never be a student here, Grazia, because you are not a boy.”

“Is it true?” I turned to Papa.

“I fear so, my little scholar,” he allowed. “The university was founded by men to further their own learning. And it remains a male preserve.”

“But
I
can come here, can I not, Papa? When I am older. To the university?” Jehiel demanded.

“Yes, my son, if you prepare yourself properly. And Grazia can learn as much — or more — at home. In fact” — he paused to capture a thought — “I myself will be her tutor. Yes I will.”

As we made our way across town I found nothing to displease me and much to delight in. Best of all were the arcades that extend over the street from every structure and make Bologna into one continuous protected cloister. Even Jew Street, cramped and crowded though it was, was arcaded. And the minuscule Casa dei Rossi, wedged in between its neighbors like a plump pillow, looked to me like a dollhouse.

The
banco
itself was so tiny that when we tried to enter as a group, we could not all stand in it at the same time. As it was, the manager was forced to rest his old bones on the
cassone
that held the day’s pledges, because there was only room for a single chair to accommodate both him and his clerk. But he greeted us kindly, and despite his sciatica, insisted on showing us around himself.

The house was arranged so that children and servants occupied the top floor and adults the
piano nobile
, just as in grand establishments. But here everything was reduced in size, so much so that when Papa stood in the center of the
sala grande
and stretched his arms wide, his fingers almost reached the walls.

What a steep descent this was from the life he had lived up until then, a man with his own
studiolo
, his library of books, his fine clothes, and all the accoutrements of the rich life. But to me, the little house offered the cozy nest I had longed for ever since we left Mantova, and I danced through it curtsying to the cook, Tasha, and to the two daily maids who, with the addition of our wet nurse, Gelsomina, composed the entire domestic staff. Three men completed the
famiglia
: a clerk, a porter-cum-messenger, and the manager, whom we called Zio Zeta since he was our uncle by marriage. Even with the addition of Papa, that still did not give us enough male adults for a
minyan
, which tells you how unimportant the Bolognese
banco
was in my grandfather’s eyes. Any self-respecting
banco ebreo
made certain to include at least ten male adults to provide the minimum number needed for daily prayers. As it was, the men of our
famiglia
were forced to go elsewhere to make their observances.

This hardship did not affect Papa, excommunicated as he was from participation in any Jewish ritual. But it would have wrung your heart to see old Zio Zeta limping his way up the street twice a day to attend prayers with the Meshullam
famiglia
. We also depended on their
shohet
to butcher our meat. And on their tutor to instruct Jehiel in Jewish ways. Imagine the proud dei Rossis agreeing to accept such largesse from a rival family.

We quickly settled into a daily routine. Each morning at cock’s crow, I woke Jehiel — we were back to sharing a room, as in the old days at Mantova — and helped him to dress for school. No body servant to dress us. And no pony ride. Papa simply walked Jehiel to the Meshullam
casa
at the near end of Jew Street and I tagged along for the exercise and the company. Papa and I were always back in our own little house long before the great bell of San Petronio rang out the call for matins, and hard at work by the time the Christians passed by on their way home from early mass. Since Tasha would not allow me near the cooking pots, I busied myself playing housekeeper during the morning hours. And Papa very soon took old Zio Zeta’s place on the
cassone
behind the counting table. Having begun his apprenticeship with the dei Rossi
banco
at the age of fifteen, the old man was entering upon his fiftieth year of service to the family and felt, quite rightly, that the time had come when he might be spared the exertions of the banking business and allowed to live out his remaining days in peace.

In the old man’s own words, Papa dropped in upon him “like an angel from heaven.” No matter that Zio was called “manager” and Papa, “clerk.” The old uncle was ready to be saved and he recognized Papa as his savior.

Once Zio Zeta had abdicated the space beside Papa, it seemed natural that I should take his place. I say natural because I soon realized that the maids did a much better job of shaking the blankets and wringing the wash than I did. But although I had no vocation for the housekeeping trade, loan-banking ran in my blood. I learned the abacus in record time, quicker than any boy, Papa said. And after dinner when business was slow, I took my afternoon plunge into the labyrinth of Greek grammar. For Papa proved as good as his word. He did begin to teach me Greek there behind the counting table.

Since you, my son, have also put in time sweating over a Greek grammar, you can guess what sweet relief Jehiel brought with him when he returned home at the end of the afternoon and interrupted our labors. Oblivious to our studies, he would settle himself beside me on the
cassone
and launch into a rambling account of the tribulations of his day. Do not fault him. He was only eight years old. And in addition to the usual insolence of street urchins, whose favorite pastime is to harass Jewish children, he was also subject to the taunts of his Jewish classmates on account of Papa’s disgrace. To his credit he learned to bear the abuse with fortitude. But every so often his courage failed him, more often on account of a curse than a blow.

One such day, the accusation had to do with usury, a word linked in my mind to Fra Bernardino and our harrowing exodus from Mantova. Jehiel had again been accosted on his way home, this time by a new set of ruffians who cursed him as a “little imp of usury,” an epithet new to him — and to me.

“Is it true, Papa?” he asked in a thin, sad voice. “Do we Jews draw all the good out of the poor and give back only gall?”

“No, my son, that is not so,” Papa answered forthrightly.

“But Papa,” Jehiel persisted, “those boys told me that gold is barren and performs no function and that those who collect interest upon money are but thieves under another name.”

“I know what you hear, my boy,” Papa replied patiently. “But remember that it is borrowed money lent out at interest by so-called usurers that finances the importation of goods, the seeds for next year’s crops, and the wars of kings and dukes and popes. And before your sister reminds me that we might be better off without wars, let me remind you that without loans of money
at interest
, we would have no spices from the Indies, nor would the peasants of Europe be warmed in winter by their Florentine woolen cloaks.”

“And jewels, Papa, what about jewels? Would we have ballases and emeralds . . .” Jehiel never failed to introduce some form of
lusso
into any discussion.

“And beautiful, painted manuscripts . . .” I added. For I never failed to take a turn on my pet pony either.

“The list of all the things that are brought to us by ship and mule and cart and for which money must be advanced would fill quartos,” Papa agreed. “But that is not the whole of it. For you might well contend that money does not, in fact, create these goods but merely facilitates their transport, might you not?”

We nodded our understanding.

“What these pietists and preachers neglect to attend to in their diatribes is the element of
risk
that is involved in these transactions. Interest is our payment for the risk we take. We risk losing all our money every time we lend it out. Caravans are robbed regularly. Ships are attacked and often sunk by pirates, whence the entire cargo is lost. As for these vast war loans, kings as a group are neither more nor less honorable than other men. And the heirs of kings have a most unfortunate disposition to forgive themselves the debts of their fathers.”

“Kings do not pay their debts, Papa?” Jehiel asked, astonished.

“Someday I will tell you the sad tale of the great banking families of Firenze, the Bardi and the Acciaiuoli, who were ruined — wiped out — by the English monarch Edward the Third when one day he declared himself bankrupt and unable to repay his debts to them.”

“Did they cut off his hands and feet and lock him in the stocks in the town square?” Jehiel asked.

“Oh no, my dear.” Papa smiled. “Kings are nor pilloried. The poor are pilloried. And the Jews. Kings are forgiven. Apparently it is part of their divine right.”

“But that is not fair . . .” I protested.

“The next time you take tea with a king, tell him so,” Papa answered me. “But I wouldn’t advise you to talk justice with a king if you value your head.”

That day marked the beginning of our instruction in the skills of a
banchiere
. Each day, Papa would bring in from the warehouse two or three diverse items — a dog collar perhaps, and a lamp and an ivory comb — and invite us to evaluate them. At the end of the year, I was able to judge the values of hundreds of items with great accuracy. Jehiel never got the point of the exercise. If the crimson silk of a pillow cover caught his fancy, he would inflate its value beyond all sense; whereas a dull-looking article such as a cooking pot seemed worthless to him even if it be cast from solid copper. Since he always lost at this game which gave me such delight, it quickly lost its charm for him; and after a few months, Papa and I were left to ourselves to pursue the twin intricacies of Greek grammar and loan-banking.