The Secret Book of Grazia dei Rossi (42 page)

How do these tales get around? “Judah never speaks of his life outside our walls to me,” I told her honestly.

“Do you ever ask?”

I was ashamed to admit that I held my husband too much in awe to initiate any topic of conversation.

“What do you talk of when you dine together?” she inquired.

“Some problem of interpretation from the
Phaedo
,” I replied. “Or perhaps a
responsum
from one of the Jewish sages. Often we are silent at the table. Judah detests trivial talk and gossip.”

“What a pity! I find gossip the spice of life. Every noon when Isaachino comes in from the
banco
for dinner, I wring him dry of every drop of news.”

“How do you do it?” I asked.

“Do what?”

“Wring him dry?”

“Oh . . .” She pondered the question thoughtfully. When at last she answered, it was with regret. “I declare I do not know how I do it. Or even
that
I do it.”

In the end Diamante’s secret turned out to be no secret at all. It took but a single dinner table conversation to give me the answer to my question. If you want a talkative man, marry a blabbermouth. Isaachino Bonaventura was a born talker. All anyone had to do to tap the contents of his mind was to sit in his presence with a silent tongue and out would pour a stream of anecdotes, events past, present, and future, speculation, and opinions, most of them shrewd, some manifestly sagacious. And all this without the slightest encouragement from anybody.

I learned more of the goings-on in Firenze at my first dinner with the Bonaventuras than I had in over a year in the company of my reticent husband.

“Things are coming to a head in town, I fear,” Isaachino informed the assemblage. “The monk from Ferrara has come into collision with the Pope, and our Medici is about to be squeezed between the two of them.”

“But does not the Christian pope command the loyalty of all Catholics?” I inquired. “How can a mere monk defy him?”

“For one thing, this monk is no ordinary street beggar with dirty feet,” Isaachino replied, delighted to have his conversational pump primed. “Girolamo Savonarola is a dangerous man.”

“As dangerous as Fra Bernardino da Feltre?”

“Worse.”

“Oh no. Forgive me, Ser Isaachino, but he could not be worse than that villain. No one could be worse,” I assured him earnestly. “Have you not heard of the Blood Libel of Trento?”

“Believe it or not, Madonna Grazia, I have heard of the Blood Libel,” he replied. “And I also have heard of your family’s expulsion from Mantova at Fra Bernardino’s instigation, and still I say that this Savonarola is the more dangerous. The Jews here think of him as just another anti-Semitic priest, and he is that, of course. But he is far more clever, far more powerful than any of the others. Do you know that when Lorenzo the Magnificent lay dying he sent for this bastard of a priest to grant him absolution for his sins? Think of it. Lorenzo dei Medici felt the need of Savonarola’s blessing before he could pass securely into the next world. Count Pico of Mirandola was sent to the convent of San Marco to bring the priest to the
magnifico
’s bedside. You do know that Mirandola is a follower of Savonarola’s, do you not?”

“But Count Pico is a Platonist,” I protested. “A philosopher, a humanist.” That much I did know.

“He is also obsessed by cabala. He spends his days searching for the universal truth in numbers, signs, and tongues. That is why he employed your honored husband to teach him Hebrew. So that he could ferret out the secrets of cabala.”

“Judah does not believe in mysticism,” I assured him. “He thinks it is all nonsense.”

“Heaven forbid I should slander such a jewel in the Jewish firmament as Judah del Medigo,” he answered graciously. “But when I refer to Count Pico of Mirandola I know whereof I speak. He comes often to the marketplace, especially in the melon season, for he is very fond of melons and prefers to select them himself. And he talks to everyone. Especially Jews. Because of his obsession with cabala.”

“But Judah despises the cabalists,” I repeated weakly.

“I tell you only what I heard from the lips of Count Pico himself. Oh, he was eloquent, lady, when he spoke of cabala, that ancient and mysterious text which contains the most secret revelations of all and which will resolve every problem of mankind.” Here Isaachino made his eyes wide with wonder in imitation of Mirandola’s manner. “With his own mouth he assured me that the sage who learns the alphabet of God in the correlation of letters and numbers will discover the hidden harmonies between different levels of being, between heaven and earth, between man and the world. And that sage will have the method of reducing all faiths, all doctrines, all languages of the Lord to one unity — one
Christian
unity. These Christians are all proselytizers in their hearts,” he added. “He would turn us all into Christians.”

“Count Pico told you he would turn us all into Christians?”

“No, he only said ‘one unity.’ But whose unity do you think he has in mind? Do you imagine he wishes to unite the world under the laws of Moses?”

I kept my own counsel on that question and Isaachino moved to another subject. But I did resolve to question Judah on the subject of his patron at the first opportunity, and indeed I brought the subject up the next day when I was seated opposite him at our own table.

I began the conversation by inquiring about the Count’s state of health — not a subject that had ever interested me before, nor did it then except as a means of arriving diplomatically at my point.

“Count Pico is not well. Not at all well,” Judah responded. “He still suffers from a recurrent tertian fever against which all my remedies do not avail. But whatever brought Count Pico to your mind? I have not spoken of him to you in some time.”

“He was the table subject at the Bonaventuras’ villa,” I replied. “Ser Isaachino believes that Count Pico is after the deep secrets of cabala in the cause of the Christian church.”

“Isaachino Bonaventura is an overgrown baby with an abacus where his brain should be,” Judah replied crossly.

“Perhaps. But is what he says the truth? Does your patron the Count seek out the secrets of the cabala from you?”

“He does have a great interest in cabala,” Judah admitted ruefully, “for which I must take part of the blame. Years ago at Padova — he was only a boy when he came there to study, not more than fourteen years old, with a mind like a diamond — he sought me out. He wished me to translate for him from Averroës and to teach him the Arab tongue. I introduced him to cabala merely as an oddity. A distraction. I never thought for a moment it would beguile his mind. Plato and Socrates were my mentors. But Pico fell under the spell of the mystics and has remained there, I fear, ever since.”

“But you tell me he is a Platonist. How can he give his allegiance to both a pagan philosopher and Jesus Christ?”

“He believes that every way is the way to the One Truth,” Judah answered simply. “It is not easy to estimate how much soothsaying and magic operate in his brain. But I do know that fruitful aspirations animate his mind. His great dream is of religious harmony. Peace among men. He seeks to find the method for reducing all faiths, all doctrines, all languages of the Lord to one unity.” Precisely Isaachino Bonaventura’s phrase, I noted. “As I say, he believes that every way is the way to the One Truth, if we could but find it.”

“Including the way of Savonarola?”

“What do you know of Savonarola?” Judah whirled on me.

“Isaachino Bonaventura was saying —”

“Do I have to tell you again that Isaachino Bonaventura is an
ignorante
, that he knows nothing but the numbers in his ledger?”

“He knows what is happening in the city,” I answered boldly, in defense of my new friends.

“Does he now?”

“He told us that this priest Savonarola is in correspondence with the French king against the Pope. And that he intends to bring the French army into Italy to cleanse us of heresy and corruption.”

“Hmm.” Judah pondered this thought. When he spoke again, the petulance was gone from his tone. “I cannot but agree with Isaachino Bonaventura that Fra Savonarola is playing a perilous game. It is foolish of me to plead his cause. This flirtation of his with the French is mad. He is a dangerous man. A fanatic.”

“Does not that make him a strange companion for a Platonist?” I asked, trying to keep the pride out of my tone, for surely Judah had made my point for me with this admission.

“You are quite the little logician, my Grazia, are you not?”

“I do not aim to be clever, sir. I only try to understand the mysteries of the human heart,” I replied, with what I hoped was suitable modesty. “And I find it incomprehensible that a Platonist like Count Pico cultivates a fanatic such as you say this priest Savonarola is.”

“So do I, little wife, so do I.” The man who gave this soft answer was a different Judah, a seeker who, as he confessed his incomprehension, nodded his head from side to side like a bewildered child. “These divided souls among whom I have spent so much of my life are still a mystery to me after all these years.”

“The Christian Platonists, sir, and their search for One Truth?”

“Exactly.” I had never seen him like this. Humble, puzzled, and somehow innocent. “Is it possible to fuse Christianity and paganism without making one the handmaid of the other, even for the most brilliant mind?” He stopped suddenly as if shocked by the sound of his own doubts. Then, turning his full gaze on me, he uttered an amazing confidence. “Sometimes my own Pico astonishes me with his interpretations. Last week, he plunged into Virgil’s
Eclogues
and emerged with the poet’s forecast that a Golden Boy would come to earth and inaugurate a Golden Age. And who do you suppose he interprets that Golden Boy to be?”

I knew at once who that Golden Boy had to be. “He interprets the pagan boy to be Jesus Christ.”

“How did you know that?”

“I knew it because of what Isaachino said about Pico della Mirandola. The Platonists might be searching for One Truth but it is still One Christian Truth. Because these Christians are all proselytizers at heart. I know it from my dealings with Madonna Isabella. Tell me true, sir, has this Pico never tried to convert you?”

With this bold query, I went too far. At the hint of an attack on his pet, the doubting, confiding, companionable Judah vanished, giving place to the man of
gravitas
, sure of himself, proud, defended by his superior knowledge and wit.

“Of course Lord Pico tries to convert me,” he answered loftily, making nothing of my accusation. “It is a game between us. He swears he will make me a Christian before he dies, and I swear he never will.”

But I would not be deterred. “Tell me this, then,” I challenged. “How long a step is it between your amiable game with the Count and the forcible conversion of Jews, as has happened in Spain?”

What made me adopt this accusatory stance? God only knows. Whatever the reason, my contentiousness completely destroyed the congress that had been building between me and my husband. When he answered my question about forcible conversion, it was as my enemy.

“I see you are determined to mark my patron as a Jew-hater. Isaachino Bonaventura has poisoned your mind.”

“Isaachino has brought certain facts to my attention.”

“Did he bring to your attention that Count Pico was convicted of heresy by the Roman Inquisition for the crime of encouraging the obstinacy of Jews and of being a Jew-lover and of Judaizing?”

“Did he burn for it?” I inquired, dripping acid.

“Fortunately he escaped Roma before the sentence could be pronounced, and was taken under the protection of Lorenzo
il magnifico
.”

“When we Jews are accused of heresy, we burn,” I responded, making no attempt now to hide my anger. “When Medina’s brother was accused of heresy, he was put to the torture, his arms torn from his body, and hung like an animal from the
bargello
’s tower, for he had no powerful friends to shield him from the Christians’ wrath.”

“Are you blaming Lord Pico for having friends, Grazia?”

“I am simply saying, sir,” I replied, “that it is easy to hold two opposing ideas in your mind at the same time and to keep a foot in each camp when you have powerful friends on either side to make certain you do not fall into the chasm between and break your bones.”

“Some are blessed by fortune with good friends,” Judah answered smoothly. “I for one. So if it is your intention to condemn Count Pico for having friends in high places, then you must surely condemn me along with him. How else do you suppose I hold my position here in Firenze except by the intercession of Count Pico and the acquiescence of Piero dei Medici? And what enables your lady friend Madonna Diamante to caper around the countryside on a blood stallion with a groom in attendance like a princess? Powerful friends, Grazia. Any Jew in this country lives happy and free only through his powerful friends in the Christian community.” And without another word, he got up, turned on his heel, and left the room.

I had driven him away with my anger. Why? Was I jealous of the Count, of Judah’s obvious preferment of his company to mine, of the way Judah’s eyes lit up when he spoke of his old pupil’s quicksilver intelligence. If so, the sentiment was unworthy of me. If Judah found more stimulation in the company of Count Pico of Mirandola than with me, who could blame him? I was impulsive and willful, fit only to gallop and giggle.

Thus began my self-castigation. Judah was my savior. He was endlessly forgiving, always eager to please me. On my account he had brought Medina de Cases into our house to provide me with a pupil and thus to occupy my time in something better than gazing out the window. He had forsaken his distinguished colleagues at the Platonic Academy for a group of provincial Jewish bankers in order to introduce me into a social milieu where I might feel at home. For my amusement, he had acted the fool at a
Shikurim
Purim. All this for my happiness. And I had repaid him by repeating slanders against his beloved pupil and patron, Count Pico.