The Secret Book of Grazia dei Rossi (28 page)

I grabbed the bellpull and gave it three good tugs. The priest did not look up. But behind me, the main door opened and a voice inquired, “Can I be of service, signorina?”

The voice was eerily familiar. I did not turn around to face its owner but waited until she should speak again.

“Will it please you to state your business, signorina?” The words themselves fairly dripped sweetness but no amount of smearing with honey could disguise the rasping, guttural tone. I had heard that voice too often ever to forget it. “Listen to the saint,” it had droned into my ear. “Listen! Listen to the saint!” No mistake about it. That voice was the voice of our old slave Cateruccia.

I ran from that place as if pursued by devils. Out into the piazza past the ancient Rotonda di San Lorenzo, smashing through the Piazza delle Erbe, heedless of the farmers who were just now beginning to set out their wares.

I believe I would have continued to race all the way to the city gates had not my strength given out. As it was, I did not pause until I had covered the entire length of the Palazzo di Ragione. There, under Dante’s watchful eye, I ran out of breath in front of the old Mayor’s House.

Once my pace slowed, so did the beating of my heart. The power of thought, which had deserted me in my panic, began to return. Cateruccia, the gatekeeper of my refuge! How could one explain her presence there but as a sign from God? The message was as clear as if He had come down from heaven and whispered in my ear. The
casa dei catecumeni
was the devil’s stronghold. I must return to my own people and to the true faith. I must humble myself before Rabbi Abramo. I must acknowledge my transgressions with a full and open heart. I must prepare to take my medicine both literally and figuratively and to live out my miserable life without any hope of redemption.

I knew that I would never again find favor in my father’s house. Nor could I look forward to escape by marriage. Once the word of my disgrace got out, no decent boy would ever marry me. The best I could hope for was that God, who had cared enough to give me this unmistakable sign, would take further pity on me and cause me to die young. It was a dismal prospect after only thirteen years of life on this earth, but just the kind of invention you might expect from an imagination fed by French romances.

I bowed my head in a prayerful pose and begged God for an early death, the sooner the better. Raising my eyes in supplication, I craned my neck upward toward heaven. But before my eyes reached the vault, they were arrested by a vision not of Jehovah, mind you, but of Virgil. There above me in his niche in the wall stood the great poet, no specter but a representation in glistening bronze, his arms resting on a stone lectern and a doctoral cap crowning his fine, shining head.

“Vergilius Mantuanus Poeterum Classimus,” read the inscription. Virgil, son of Mantova, poet, seer, and sage.

Fortuna had stepped in. Who else would have led me to the very spot where, when I raised my eyes to God, I met the pagan poet in his stead? Perhaps, I thought, the great sage has some wisdom for me, some message of hope.

In my sack lay the precious manuscript I had snatched up at the last moment. Placing the volume in my lap, I riffled through the pages and let them fall open where they might, as I had seen Jehiel do when foretelling the future from the sacred book.

“Be not appalled by fear,” I read. “Destiny will find a way for you. If you court her well, she will give you fair passage.” Juno’s advice to Aeneas. I read on.

But for you Italy is still far into the future

And lies at the end of a long voyage over uncharted waters.

Your way will be blocked by Scylla on the right.

And on the left, by the never-pacified Charybdis who,

Thrice in the day, drinks down the sheer depth

of her engulfing abyss.

Like Dido, I too was caught between Scylla and Charybdis: the
casa dei catecumeni
on one hand, the Casa dei Rossi on the other.

Scylla hides in a cavern and sucks ships down

onto the rocks. Her upper half is as of a human

in the shape of a maid. But her lower part

is a monstrous whale.

What a perfect image for Cateruccia, half maid, half monster. As for the never-pacified Charybdis, that had to be my relentless nemesis, Rabbi Abramo.

And how did the goddess advise Aeneas to make his way between these twins of jeopardy? I turned the page, seeking confirmation of my memory. Yes. There it was, just as I remembered:

It will be wiser not to hasten through the straight

But rather to take a long and roundabout course.

All doubt dispelled and all fear quelled, I picked up my sack and, holding Fingebat close, headed for the Reggio — making certain not to hasten and to take a roundabout course by way of the fish market.

It is not customary to call uninvited on princes. In all my life, I had not heard of a Jew taking such a liberty. So it was with some fluttering of the heart that I presented myself at the sentry box outside the great portal of the Reggio to ask if I might see Lord Pirro Gonzaga.

“And who shall I say is calling on the young lord so boldly this morning?” the guard inquired with a stern scowl.

“Say it is the lady Grazia dei Rossi,” I replied in the strongest voice I could muster.

To my astonishment, his cloudy countenance turned immediately sunny and he took my arm in a most gallant fashion. “Where have you been, lady?” he asked, letting me through the gate as he spoke. “The Marchesana has been expecting you.”

“There must be a mistake.” I tugged myself free. “I am come to see Lord Pirro.”

“Oh, there is no mistake, lady, unless you be not who you pretend to be.”

“I
am
Grazia dei Rossi,” I assured him.

“Grazia dei Rossi, the Jewess?” he asked.

“The same.”

“Then you are expected for an audience with the Marchesana. See here.” He pointed to a sheet of vellum pinned to the guardhouse wall. “These are the week’s arrangements.” And sure enough, written in bold letters below the name of Maestro Antonio, the goldsmith, and above that of Madonna Yseult Beau Tre, Princess of France, appeared the name of the lady Grazia, the Jewess.

“Hurry along, now. A page will take you to the Marchesana.”

Still I hesitated.

“You are late, lady. The goldsmith and the French princess have long since been and gone.” He pushed me again, not so gently this time. “Leave the dog with me.”

“No! Madonna Isabella has requested that Fingebat accompany me,” I heard myself say. “He is wanted at the audience.”

And the gatekeeper gave way.

Now the page boy grabbed my free hand and proceeded to whisk me through corridor after corridor — each grander than the one before — and up and down stairways and across cloisters and gardens. Finally we crossed over a drawbridge and entered Saint George’s castle, where the Marchese and his lady lived their private life.

Here the Marchesana did not sit upon a raised dais beside the Marchese, but alone, in a plain chair by the stove, with her dwarfs seated nearby on child-size stools, and a small dog in her lap. The moment this pampered animal caught a whiff of Fingebat, he leapt off his perch and lunged at my boots, biting and scratching to get at what he perceived as an enemy. Fingebat in his turn set up as noisy a caterwaul as the other dog, wriggling and squirming to jump out of my arms and down to the floor in order to do battle with his adversary. And the young Marchesana clapped her hands with delight and ordered one of her attendants to bring a juicy bone to the little Jewish cur, as she called Fingebat.

Then, turning her attention to me, she remarked, most pleasantly, “So you have brought your dog to the
disputa
, signorina
ebrea
?”

What
disputa
? I had heard of no
disputa
.

“Did you bring no documents to bolster your case?” she inquired. “I had hoped to see the dei Rossi volume of Josephus’s
Jewish War
, for I hear it is the least corrupted translation of that work in all of Italy.”

Confounded by her questions, I remained silent.

“Is there something amiss, lady?” she inquired, noticing my reticence at last. “Are you unwilling to engage in this
disputa
with me? Everything I know of you suggests that you would make a worthy adversary. And I do believe that for us women to stage such a battle of ideas would be most unusual and interesting. Do you not agree?”

It was not possible for me to keep still any longer without leading her to believe that I was either dumb, obdurate, or cowardly.

“I most humbly beg pardon for my ignorance,
illustrissima
,” I answered, “but I know nothing of this
disputa
.”

“What brings you here then if not my invitation?” she inquired, not quite so friendly now.

“I fear it was no invitation but rather desperation that brought me,
illustrissima
,” I replied. “I came to your portal to throw myself on your mercy and to beg your
caritas
.”

“
Caritas
? Desperation? What has desperation to do with my
disputa
?” Suddenly the gracious lady was a petulant child. I had witnessed an identical display of capriciousness by the lady’s father the day Papa took us to Belriguardo. Papa had not lost countenance then and I must not allow myself to lose it now.

“Forgive me,
illustrissima
,” I pleaded. “Not for all the world would I disappoint you — you who have shone your light so graciously on me, who have honored me with your attention to my plight. There has been some mischief at work here. For I misread your invitation. That is the reason I am ill prepared to engage in this
disputa
. But I assure you that if I am given a second chance . . .”

She was wavering. I could see the goodness and sweetness which is a genuine part of her nature doing battle with the petulance and quick temper which is also a part of her.

Then, as if he had been coached in his part by a master, little Fingebat let out a thin, pathetic whine. Never was a sound better timed. The dwarfs seated around Madonna Isabella’s chair began to giggle. The little one called Crazy Catherine laughed so hard that she peed a stream upon the marble floor.

That lapse and the merriment it occasioned tipped the balance in my favor. Unable to resist the laughter around her, the Marchesana joined in and ended up laughing as heartily as any of her attendants, albeit with more control than the female dwarf.

At length, wiping the tears of glee from her eyes, she remarked, “The little Jewish cur is a fine performer. Perhaps we should include him in our revels at
carnevale
. For he is truly a most original clown.” And would you believe it the little Jewish cur actually had the wit to bark out a thank-you.

Her temper softened by his tricks, Madonna Isabella agreed to postpone the
disputa
until the following day and allowed me to kiss her hand before I was excused. Courtiers who had looked down their noses at me when I entered now bowed me out with smiles. And the page who had conducted me to the audience with such ill grace now stepped along sprightly beside me, chatting me up as if I were a regular familiar of the court. In the circumstances, I had no hesitation in asking him to announce me to Lord Pirro. Nor did he display any hesitation in setting off to find that young gentleman for me. But first he insisted on settling me comfortably on a bench in the Guard’s Hall. For a time I diverted myself by gazing at the amazingly lifelike portraits of the Gonzagas’ favorite horses that decorated the walls above me. But the tumultuous events of the morning had worn me down and after a while I curled up on the bench with Fingebat in my arms and fell asleep.

I was awakened by a tap on my shoulder. Even half asleep, I knew the touch.

“Do my eyes deceive me? No. It is my sweet Grazia.” Taking my hands in his, he raised me gently to my feet. “Oh, lady, you are a feast for my eyes. How come you here?”

I quickly related to him all the events that had transpired, up to and including my puzzling audience with Madonna Isabella, but coming back again and again to my fateful encounter with Cateruccia at the
casa dei catecumeni
. “It is an evil augury.”

“You believe that?”

“There cannot be any doubt,” I assured him. “If I go into that place, I will lose my soul. The One True God has put her there to warn me away.”

“Which God is that? The God that you have this very day renounced by coming to me?”

In the confusion of the day I had forgotten what brought me to this place, what I had embraced, what I had rejected.

“You look stricken, lady. Is it regret that clouds your eyes? So soon?”

“Perhaps, sir,” I admitted. “I never expected to find the like of our old slave Cateruccia at the
casa dei catecumeni
. She is my devil.”

“She is a wretch of no importance, a gnat to be swatted if it presumes to light on you,” he contradicted me firmly. “Think of your consequence in the world. You, my love, have this day become a protégée of the most powerful lady in Mantova as well as the beloved of her kinsman. This slave is beneath your notice.”

From the moment I heard Cateruccia’s voice that morning, she had taken the shape in my mind of a great and powerful being hovering above me like a huge black bat. As I heard her described so disparagingly, she began to lose both volume and power.

“Listen to me, Grazia.” I was hearing a new Lord Pirro, a wise and worldly man. “It is not with some unimportant slave that we must concern ourselves but with this proposed
disputa
that you tell me about. For although the One True God, as you call Him, may be heating up some dreadful punishment for you in the great by-and-by, Madonna Isabella is here and now in this palace and is capable of considerable spite when she is crossed. It is the Este in her. We on the Gonzaga side tend to display more consistency. Now . . .” He was sounding more businesslike by the minute. “Are you prepared to debate with her the question of Jewish and Christian interpretations of the Messiah?”