The Secret Book of Grazia dei Rossi (52 page)

“Give me the purse, boy,” the maestro instructed Asher. Then we stood while he seated himself at a trestle table and carefully counted out the fifty-five coins, one by one.

“Are they all there, maestro?” I could not resist the dig.

“Yes,” he answered coldly. “Did you bring the receipt?”

How embarrassing. I had not written up the receipt as I might have done. “I have not brought one,” I answered. “But if you can spare a small piece of paper I will write on it here and now and you can sign it.”

“Paper costs money, you know.” He slid out a sheet of vellum and scrawled the receipt. “Bring a replacement next time.” Then, without a pause: “Stand over there.” He pointed his finger at a part of the room where a shaft of sunlight made a wide triangle on the floor. “There in the light. And take your cap off.”

I did as I was told. Whereupon I was subjected to the most intense scrutiny I have ever faced, even including Judah’s examinations. Maestro Mantegna’s eyes not only pierced me, they illuminated me as if he were blazing a trail into my soul. When he had finished he picked up my hands one by one and examined them in the same way. Then he tugged a piece of my hair out of its ribbon and frowned over the strand intensely. When that was over he stood back and squinted at me the way men do at horse auctions. All this without saying a word. When at last he spoke, he was curt and to the point.

“I want to paint you from life.”

Too astonished to reply, I simply gaped.

“Don’t look so frightened. I have no designs on your body. Except to immortalize it.” A gasp from Asher caught his attention. “You can bring your servant along for a chaperon.”

“He is not my servant,” I stammered. “He is my cousin.”

“Well then, don’t bring him. Bring your husband. Or your mother. Anyone you like. But only one. I cannot bear chatter.”

“But I did not say —”

“Think before you turn me down, young lady,” he interrupted. “This country is full of women who would give their teeth to be painted by Andrea Mantegna. You are being offered a chance to live forever, girl. Don’t you understand?”

From behind me Asher’s voice stammered weakly, “It is against our religion to make graven images, sir.”

“You won’t be making the graven image, boy. I will. And it is not against
my
religion, so we are both safe from burning.” Then, turning to me: “Is that what frightens you, young lady?”

“No, maestro.” I was determined not to be ridden over like some serving wench. “I am afraid that you will make me ugly.”

He laughed. Out loud. Not a giggle but a great roar of a laugh. “Afraid I will make you ugly! Where did you ever get such an idea?”

“I heard that you painted the
illustrissima
Isabella and that you made her fat.”

“And you are afraid that I will defile your beauty as I did hers?”

“I am not beautiful, sir,” I answered. “But I fear that if you made Madonna Isabella, who
is
beautiful, ugly, then maybe you will make me, who am not beautiful at all . . .” I could not find the words to finish the thought. But he understood.

He walked toward me and once again took my face in his gnarled, paint-stained hands. “I do not find Madonna Isabella beautiful, although I would prefer you not to tell her that.” He spoke quietly. “But I do find
you
beautiful. And that is why I am asking you to sit for me.”

Whereupon I agreed. On the spot.

All the way home Asher pleaded with me to change my mind. The sitting would cause a scandal; it might get back to Marchese Francesco and make him angry. The more he spoke, the more eager I became to have my portrait.

Asher’s reproofs were a mild prelude to the shrieks and laments that greeted me at home. “He will ask you to take your clothes off,” Dorotea wailed. “And dishonor you forever.” She even went so far as to solicit my father’s support — which necessitated my showing him the Marchese’s letter and distressing him unnecessarily. Had I been able to strangle that woman every time I had the whim, she would have died a dozen deaths.

To my surprise, Papa sided with her although for different reasons. “Who will manage the
banco
in your absence, daughter?” he asked. How quickly one becomes indispensable.

I put his agitation to rest with a promise not to do my sitting in business hours. But Dorotea’s objections were not so easily overcome. Only my husband had authority over me, I informed her, whereupon she insisted that I must get Judah’s written permission for the sitting.

Days went by. I saw my chance at immortality slipping away.

“Why cannot they leave me alone?” I beseeched Penina. “What I am proposing is blameless. The words of the commandment are very clear. Thou shalt not make a graven image or bow down to a graven image. Nobody is bowing down. And as for the making of the thing, it will be Maestro Andrea who will be making the image, not I. And his God lets him do it, so neither of us will burn,” I quoted.

“Sometimes you seem so harsh that I become frightened of you, Grazia.” She shook her head dolefully.

“I fight for what is my right,” I answered heatedly. “Some of us do, you know.”

The moment I uttered the words, I wished them back behind my tongue, for the tears that came to her eyes told me that I had hurt her deeply. “I have not your spirit, Grazia,” was all she said.

Her humility was worse than a reproach. Of all people in the world, she least deserved my scorn. “Oh, Penina
mia
. . .” I ran to embrace her. “I am sorry. Forgive my hasty tongue.”

“There is nothing to forgive. You spoke the truth, Grazia. I lack courage. I know you would like me to do battle with La Nonna and Dorotea as you do. But we are not made the same, cousin.”

“And thank God for it,” I cried, meaning it. “If you were me, what would I do without you, the sweet and gentle influence on my hot temper? Who would I choose to accompany me when I go to sit for Messer Andrea?”

“Me?” Her eyes widened.

“Of course you. How else will I prove to you that Maestro Andrea is not the old goat you think him? That his eyes seek out beauty, not lechery. You will see for yourself.”

The next day after dinner, without asking or telling anyone, I set off with Penina for Maestro Andrea’s house. We were met at the front portal by a servant who led us immediately across the empty atrium and into the cluttered room with the trestle table. But now there were three large pieces of heavy beige-colored canvas hanging on each wall. Blank canvas.

“You took your good time coming,” was the only welcome we got. The maestro sat me down at once on a chair in the same corner of the room where he had put me before.

“Get rid of those plaits,” he ordered.

“But —”

“You can bind them up again when we’re done. Now let ’em loose.”

I saw Penina’s eyes widen. What wildness did this presage?

She soon learned. As I carefully unbraided my hair, the maestro began to drag a heavy plinth across the floor, cursing it at every push. “Move, you son of a whore,” he panted as he wrestled the thing into position opposite me. Then when he had the little pillar in a place that suited him, he gave it an affectionate pat and left the room without a word.

“He is a madman,” Penina whispered. “A maniac.”

“He is the finest painter in all of Italy,” I told her. “Except perhaps for the one called Leonardo from Vinci. And that one never finishes anything.”

“Does he not frighten you, Grazia?”

“No,” I answered truthfully. “For there is no malice in him.”

Just then the maestro returned, followed by a young man carrying the stone bust of a woman.

“I want Faustina up there on the top of the plinth in profile, facing the girl,” the painter ordered, indicating the bust.

“Yes, Father.” Turning to look at me from time to time to make certain that my head and the stone head were at the same angle of profile, the young man set the head on the plinth.

“Will that do, Father?” he asked.

“Yes, yes,” the old man answered impatiently. “Now get back to work. The Marchesana wants her birth tray in time for the christening. At the rate you are going, it won’t be ready until the child is weaned. Go! Work! Call me when it is time to put in Abraham’s face.”

“And the boy? Isaac?” his son asked timidly.

“I leave that figure to you, my son. Just remember, his father has a knife at his throat and is quite prepared to use it. Just like me. Ha ha ha.” I swear the old man enjoyed frightening people. He certainly took pleasure in his son’s discomfiture. Well, he was not going to frighten me.

“Who is the stone lady?” I asked, even though his manner did not invite conversation.

“Who do you think?” he growled.

“She looks Roman to me. Perhaps the wife of some Caesar.”

“She is Faustina, wife of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius. He loved her so much that he could not be without her. He even took her with him on his northern campaign.”

“They say he took her with him because he couldn’t trust her. That she was faithless and immoral,” I answered.

“Faithless and immoral, perhaps,” was his answer. “But beautiful.” He drew his hand over the stone cheek, following its contours lovingly. “She is my muse. I would give all I own in the world for her. My house, my children, all.” Then, without missing a beat, he asked, “Did you bring the sheet of vellum you owe me?”

Luckily, I had remembered that infinitesimal debt.

“Good.” He nodded with satisfaction as he took the sheet from my hand and rubbed it between his fingers. “This will do nicely for a beginning.”

So saying, he picked up a quill and began to draw on the paper with quick, scratchy strokes. I never knew drawing could be such a noisy activity. Scratch. Scratch. Scratch. The sound put my teeth on edge. But I said nothing of it and the room remained silent except for the rasp of the pen on the vellum.

After a time my neck began to cramp and I raised my hand to rub it, only to be stopped midway by the stern order “Stay still, damn it. I will tell you when to move.”

By the time the triangle of light in the corner of Maestro Andrea’s studio had shrunk to a sliver, my neck felt like a cushion stuck full of pins. Still, I forbore and kept my pose. And at last the painter suddenly cried, “Enough!” and with a grand flourish, waved the vellum sheet through the air in a series of swirls and brought it to rest before my eyes.

“Madonna Grazia . . .” He bowed low.

There I was to the life. Sitting face-to-face with Faustina, who bore a startling resemblance to me. How do they do it, these great ones?

“I shall call the painting ‘Faustina and her Double,’” he announced. “And I will put some buildings in behind for you.”

I turned to my friend. “Penina, come and look.”

“No!” He quickly withdrew the sketch and clamped it into a tin box on his table. “No one sees my sketches . . .”

“But she is my —”

“Your cousin. So you told me. You have too many cousins.”

“But she is also my friend, maestro. Please let her see it.”

“She can see the painting when it is done. I do not show my sketches. Not like those who make a sketch or two to tantalize the eye, then never do more.”

Plainly he would not be moved.

“When shall I come again, maestro?” I asked.

“Tomorrow early. I only work here in the studio in the mornings. Afternoons I give over to my workshop. It is birth trays and costumes and gewgaws that keep food on the table, you know. And they all want evidence of the master’s hand for their five ducats.”

“But I cannot come in the mornings, for I must work in the
banco
.”

“Ah yes, the loan bank.” He did not bother to disguise his contempt.

“Loan-banking is my family’s profession, one of the few open to us Jews in this world,” I reminded him.

“So it is.” A great veil of indifference fell over his eyes. “Very well then. You may come on Tuesday afternoons. One afternoon out of the week is the most I can spare from my workshop. It will delay the portrait, but . . .” He shrugged, threw up his hands, and was gone.

It was almost dark by the time we arrived home. The sitting had taken longer than I thought. Surprisingly, I heard not a word of rebuke from Dorotea.

Instead, she simply reached down into her workbasket and handed me a small packet without a word. It was a letter. With the seal broken. So she had already read the contents. They must not have pleased her, for her pale face fairly quivered with fury when she handed it to me.

“Most treasured and beloved wife,” I read.

“Vis-à-vis your request for guidance in the matter of having your portrait made by Maestro Andrea Mantegna: I have consulted the rabbis of Napoli on their interpretation of the second commandment. They are divided. In the face of this official confusion, I advise you to follow the dictates of your own conscience, which, I have cause to know, is a sterner taskmaster than any rabbi.

“Tell anyone who questions your decision that you act with my blessing.

“My most devoted felicitations to your honorable father. Remember my prescription: gentle hands, warm smiles, soft voices, and no spicy foods. Bear in mind that you are the chiefest among my concerns and that I am prepared to come to your aid in spite of my duties if I am badly needed. You must be the judge of that. In this, as in all matters great and small, I place my full confidence in your wise and prudent judgment. I hold you dearer than life itself, my little wife.”

It was signed, “Your most respectful and loving husband.”

Now it seemed that nothing stood in the way of my portrait. Even Penina agreed. But we were soon to learn that the project had a much more potent enemy than my stepmother. That revelation came at my fourth or fifth sitting when the door to the studio flew open and the maid rushed in, flushed and flustered.

“I am sorry, sir, but the Marchesana insisted . . .”

She had barely gotten the words out when in swept the
illustrissima
herself — Madonna Isabella. “Why, Grazia, what a surprise to find you here. We had been informed that you were managing the loan bank.”

“So I am,
illustrissima
.”