The Secret Book of Grazia dei Rossi (47 page)

But he did not obey. He stayed there kneeling at my feet, smelling of cloves.

“Go now,” I repeated.

Still he did not move.

“What is it, Medina? Speak or get out.”

“I no longer wish to study Maestro Boccaccio, madonna. I wish to study the poet Terence.”

I was prepared for any insolence but not for this strange request. “You have never displayed the slightest interest in the ancients,” I answered. “Why now?”

“We can all learn from Terence, madonna. It was he who said, ‘I am a man and nothing human is alien to me.’ Which means that we must forgive and pity. My master says that justice is a brutal whip in the hands of someone untouched by
caritas
.”

“He is not the first to make that observation, Medina,” I commented. “The Christian apostle Mark made the same point more than a dozen hundred years ago.”

“Which only strengthens the case, madonna. All of life is a revelation of the one perfect truth, madonna. All earthly faiths are imperfect strivings after that perfect faith and thus resemble each other more and more, the closer we come to the perfection of perfect love —
caritas
.”

“What has all this to do with Terence, Medina?”

He shook his head, confused for the moment by the necessity to explain himself. Then, he simply resumed his oration. “I speak of harmony, madonna, and the divinity of man. As the great Pico has written in his oration on the dignity of man, (Did I see a sly grimace pass over his face when he spoke the name Pico?) all is the word of God, the stars in the heavens, the elements of the earth, the voices of nature, the
senses
of men . . .”

“Enough!” I had had a gutful of this prattle. “What are you getting at, Medina? Spit it out!”

Whereupon he took a deep breath, leaned forward, and pointing his finger at me like an avenging angel, intoned in a manner worthy of Savonarola himself, “I am a man and nothing human is alien to me. We can all learn from Terence, madonna.”

Then, as if his courage had left him in one great voiding, he scurried to the door and fled.

I never saw that boy again. When Judah returned home for dinner I asked him to dismiss Medina at once. An insolence too humiliating to repeat, I told him. I did not offer the details. He did not press me.

By evening, the boy’s few belongings were packed and sent off. He did not appear the next morning nor ever again at our portal. But every time I saw Judah leave our house and head in the direction of the river where the Spaniards lived, I wondered if he was gone to visit his boy Medina with a little packet of cloves tucked into his pocket or a small book of verse — perhaps Pindar’s odes to the athletes, their backs arched like bows.

I never asked Judah where he went when he turned left instead of right. And the name of Medina was added to the name of Count Pico della Mirandola on the unwritten list of names not to be mentioned in the arid conversations between us.

Poor Judah. Everything in his life went wrong at the same moment. He lost the man he loved. His comfortable charade of a marriage was shattered. Piero dei Medici’s exile wiped out the Platonic Academy, his haven of camaraderie and intellectual delight. The dispersal of the Laurentian Library robbed him of his sinecure as librarian of the now-scattered Medici collection. Deprived of friends, work, and love, he was left stranded on an island of domestic discord with a shrew for company.

But Fortuna, who has always kept a weather eye out for Judah, looked down, and seeing one of her favorites brought so low, determined to end his penance. This she did in her usual whimsical way, by granting him the least of all his heart’s desires. She enlisted him again into the service of the King of France, now firmly established as the conqueror of Napoli and an avid student of Neapolitan
dolce far niente
. With this shining example before them, his troops, loyal Frenchmen every one, set about to follow their sovereign’s dalliance along the primrose path. And soon there appeared among the soldiers a virulent new affliction known by the French as “the love disease” and by the Neapolitans as “the French boils.” By whatever name, it seriously threatened the health of the King’s army. Once again the French monarch had need of his specialist in diseases below the navel. Judah left at once for Napoli.

Less than a week later I received a letter from my stepmother, Dorotea, urging me to come to Mantova without delay. Some trouble with the Gonzagas, so horrendous in its consequences that she could not write of it.

Her letter left me as ignorant of the nature of the impending catastrophe in Mantova as Judah was of the nature of the mysterious love disease that had disabled the French army in Napoli. But we each of us answered the call and took off, Judah to the south, I to the north. Fortuna had willed it.

32

M
y father’s new house was situated on the western edge of Mantova hard by the Porta Mulina. Riding in through that gate, I was spared the sight of the places that might desolate my spirit with reminders of loss: our old home near the fish market, where I had left my childhood; the Piazza delle Erbe, where I lost my innocent belief in the world’s goodwill; the Reggio, where I had been severed from the man I loved.

Moments after we had passed through the gate, we headed into a street lettered “Via San Simone,” and our porter called out to me to halt my horse. This was it, he shouted, number five, the number Dorotea had written in her letter. I had noted the house as we turned the corner — a strikingly angled building on the corner with a most beautiful carved balustrade around the loggia — and had ridden on past it, never for a moment thinking that this palazzo could be my father’s house. It was much too grand. Almost twice the width of our old house, with a polychromed facade and in a very exposed location for the house of a Jew.

“Are you certain this is it?” I asked doubtfully. Then I heard, “Here she is! Here she is! It is Grazia come home!” and out into the street poured my family: Dorotea, her features composed into a false smile; at her side, Ricca, still lumpish like her mother; Asher, fat and bashful; standing modestly to one side, my darling Penina, thin and bent like a bamboo reed; dodging in and out among them, Jehiel, showing the beginnings of a barrel chest; and Gershom, a pensive seven-year-old with a perfect oval face and black coals for eyes. As I embraced him I vowed to take him back to Firenze with me and teach him how to smile.

But where was my father?

“Your father is resting,” Dorotea volunteered before I had a chance to ask. “I would not wake him even for you, Grazia, he sleeps so fitfully.”

My father a fitful sleeper? He always slept like a stone.

“What ails him, Dorotea?” I asked her directly. “Your letter was marvelously vague.”

“I did not have the heart to write it,” she answered. For once, I believed her. There were black smudges under her eyes that often come from sleepless nights.

“I want to know what is happening here, Dorotea,” I pressed her. “Why have I been called?”

What I got in reply was a prolonged sigh and a quiver of the lower lip. “Take me to him,” I instructed her. Better to make my own investigation than try to penetrate a veil of tears.

“I will take you, cousin.” Asher stepped forward. What a kind, open countenance he had. Why had I never noticed?

We found my father in his
studiolo
wrapped in a blanket, dozing in a chair, lost in it, small and shrunken in his shawl, and with a yellowish tinge to his skin. Liver, I thought. Then I stopped thinking and simply threw my arms around him and hugged him with all my strength.

At first, he struggled against my embrace. I had surprised him in his sleep. But then, I heard him mumble, “Graziella
mia
,” and felt his arms close around me. And we stayed there clasping each other for God knows how many minutes until I became aware of a discreet clearing of the throat behind me and realized that Asher must still be with us. I released my hold on Papa — he seemed so light in my arms — and calling up my utmost courtesy so as not to insult the good fellow, I asked my cousin if he would be good enough to leave us.

He bobbed one of his awkward little bows and made haste to oblige me. Obviously, the role of eavesdropper was uncongenial to him.

I must remember, I thought, not to lump him together with his mother and sister; for he is a completely different article.

As if to reinforce the thought, he mumbled shyly as he passed me, “I am glad you have come, Grazia.” And was gone.

“Asher has grown into a fine fellow,” I remarked to my father.

“He is my right hand, only steadier,” Papa answered, holding up his trembling right hand to prove the truth of the metaphor. “I could not have got on without him these past weeks.”

“What about Jehiel? Is he too young for the
banco
?” I asked.

“Your brother will always be too young.” Papa smiled indulgently. “He is a tinkerer. A dreamer. Perhaps someday he will make an engineer. But a banker, never. Now, the little one is another story.”

“Gershom?”

“He took to the abacus like an infant to the tit. Thrives on it.”

“He looks so solemn, Papa. Does he ever smile?”

“He is a worrier like you, daughter.”

“But not such a trial as I was?”

“Few children are.” Again, the indulgent smile. Who was this stranger with the low voice and air of resignation? What had happened to my contumacious father?

“What is wrong with you, Papa?” I asked him.

“Some months back, there was an episode out in the street. Ruffians,
ignoranti
. In the melee a stone struck me on the back. Maestro Portaleone says it caused a tumor to grow on my kidney. He has prescribed a poultice to ease my discomfort.”

A poultice for a tumor? What nonsense was this? And what was the meaning of this “discomfort” he spoke of?
Dio
, I do hate it when physicians refer to pain as “discomfort.”

“Are you in pain, Papa?” I asked.

“A little. Sometimes when I change my position . . .” He shifted his body to show me and grimaced noticeably from the exertion.

“You
are
in pain.”

“My pain is eased by the sight of you,” he replied. Eased, perhaps, but not removed. The tight creases at the corners of his mouth told me that much. Clearly I must get Judah to come at once. At once.

Meantime I must not continue to aggravate the patient’s misery by interjecting my unease into his tranquillity.

“What can I do to aid in your convalescence, Papa?” I asked, putting on as cheerful a face as I could. “Is there some special thing I can cook that might whet your appetite? Or would you like me to read to you? Virgil, perhaps.”

“Perhaps. In the evenings.”

“This very evening if you like, Papa. But what of the days? I have come all this way to serve you. You must give me something to do.”

He sighed and paused, a pause so long that I thought he might have let go the thread of our conversation. But at length, he picked it up. “I hate to ask this of you, Grazia. You are a married woman now. With a position to uphold. The wife of a great scholar . . .”

“Tell me, Papa,” I interrupted him. “Whatever it is, tell me and I will do it. I assure you Judah would want me to.”

“I do not wish you to demean yourself. Your position in the world . . .”

“Anything, Papa,” I insisted. “Do you wish me to wash your feet? Comb the lice out of your head? The lowliest task would give me pleasure . . .”

He held up his shaking hand to stop me. “Nothing like that, daughter. It is the
banco
I am concerned about. Francesco Gonzaga is about to be reappointed Captain-General of the Venetian army. He will need ready cash to tide him over until the Venetian gold starts to flow. The Gonzagas are shrewd bargainers, especially the wife, Madonna Isabella. And I fear I have not the strength for a battle. I am asking you to take my place in the
banco
and deal with him when he comes to us, which he is sure to do. Asher is a fine young man and willing, but inexperienced. You are the only one I can trust to deal with the Gonzagas.”

“But I will adore to do that, Papa. Am I not a pawnbroker’s daughter born and bred and trained by you?” As I spoke I could feel the weight of the coins in my fingers and the itch of the horsehair cushion I sat on in the little
banco
in Bologna where I had been daughter, student, helper — everything — to my father.