The Secret Book of Grazia dei Rossi (48 page)

“I will miss you at my side, Papa,” I told him.

“And I you, daughter.” He reached up and touched my cheek. “So beautiful.” His fingers felt dry and cold on my flushed skin. “You have become such a fine woman. Your mother would be proud of you.”

“You would not always have said so, Papa,” I chided him gently.

“Oh yes I would,” he corrected me, more spirit in that one denial than in all his conversation with me thus far. “Many times in the past you have rubbed my patience like a rough burr. But you have never shamed me.”

Unthinking, I bent on one knee and lowered my head before him as I had been taught to do by the Christians when blessed. Indeed my father’s benediction was to me as hard-won as God’s and twice as treasured.

When I left him a few moments later, I found my friend Penina waiting for me on the landing.

“Come.” She took my hand and led me up a narrow flight of stairs to her attic chamber. It was a room with rafters so low that even I, who am not a tall woman, could hardly stand straight without bumping my head on them. “My bed is yours to share if you wish it, Grazia,” she offered.

It was a tempting offer. But I knew that if I was to achieve any authority in this house, I must command a space in which I could stand tall. A household is like any other establishment, be it a royal court or a chicken house. Certain stations count for more than others. The place one occupies at table, the place one sleeps — these bespeak authority more eloquently than words. In case you have not noticed, duchesses do not sleep in attics. With heartfelt regret I refused Penina’s offer and set forth to pick myself a fine bed and a proper place to put it.

The bed I chose with Asher’s help was only the second-best one in our warehouse. The best bed was a heavily carved thing from Marchesana Barbara’s time, when things German were the fashion in Mantova. My choice was more modern but with enough gilt carving on it to proclaim its owner’s consequence.

The next decision: Where should I establish my command post? After considering the possibilities I chose the
sala piccola
where Dorotea sat to her sewing with the women of the household. How better to establish one’s place in another woman’s house than to take over her sitting room?

Leaving a porter to see to the hauling, I then went to search for some fine linens and a coverlet. A red satin one caught my eye at once, but I resisted — I was growing up — and selected a cover of Persian wool from the place they call Cachemire. Very soft and elegant. And warm too.

When I returned to the house with my treasures, I found Dorotea standing in her
sala
beside my bed, hands on hips, shouting at the top of her voice for the porter who had put it there to take it away.

“I ordered it put here,” I informed her sweetly. “It is my bed. And this is to be my room as long as I live here.”

No explanation did I give. No excuse. No apology. Time had taught me something about dealing with bullies.

That afternoon, I resumed my old seat in the
banco
. For a moment when I first climbed onto the strongbox to sit behind the green-covered table, the years fell away and I was again that raggedy creature girdled in paste jewels who sat dreaming that a knight would stride in and carry her away to an earthly paradise. But one look at the faces around me wiped that image from my mind. What I saw reflected in their admiring eyes was a fashionable young woman in a fine wool
gamorra
, low-cut in the Florentine style, her hair caught up in a golden filet — a gift from Diamante — gathered on her forehead by a fine, large pearl — a gift from Judah. And in truth, I was an ornament in that dreary little provincial
banco
. The envy in Ricca’s eyes when she came in and beheld me enthroned on my high banker’s chair was especially delectable to me.

In the evening, old doctor Portaleone came at my bidding, bringing along his fellow croupier in the game of life and death, Rabbi Abramo. The interview was protracted and acrimonious. Taking the longest way around, they informed me that my father was suffering from an incurable tumor and that he would die within the year. Perhaps within months. That from the physician. And from the other one, a reworking of the old saw “God is just and everything He does is for the best.”

Every time I hear that phrase I could spit in God’s eye. My father was a man who had never harmed a soul intentionally. I could not accept the sentence so easily pronounced on him by the very ones charged with saving his life. I ranted. I raved. In the end I told them both to go to hell and wrote off a long letter to Napoli begging Judah to come at once and save my father from the jaws of death, because this doctor and this priest together would surely kill him.

There remained Dorotea to deal with and I proceeded to the task with relish. I found her in the garden.

“Why did you not tell me that my father was knocking on death’s door?” I berated her.

“I did not have the heart.” She sniffed and dabbed at her nose.

“You did not have the wit is more like it. What if we have left this tumor to fester there too long? What if he could have been saved?”

“Maestro Portaleone told me that there was no hope. It is God’s judgment on us for our sins. This house is cursed,” she went on. “I castigate myself every day that I agreed to move here.”

“It was not your wish?” I asked.

“Your honored father was bound to have it. And you know him when he sets his mind on something.” Indeed I did. All it took was a nudge from the right elbow to dislodge him. The woman was lying in her teeth.

“Well, it seems Papa is being repaid for his obduracy,” I remarked, baiting the trap. “And I shall chide him for it when I see him.”

“No. Do not do that.” She clasped my sleeve urgently. “Do not mention this cursed house, please, Grazia. It will only add to his misery.”

Now I was in no doubt that this grand house had been bought at her instigation.

“Tell me about this curse,” I urged her.

“It is a long terrible story . . .” she temporized.

“Start,” I ordered. And after some sniffing of the bubble on the end of her nose, she began.

“This house was the property of a Christian silk merchant called Pagano. His business fell on evil days. He needed money, hundreds of ducats to cover his debts. He came to the
banco
to borrow it. But he had no security, only this house. So I said to Daniele —” She caught herself short and started again. “I said to Daniele, ‘Do not buy the silk merchant’s house, honored husband. It is out of the district of our friends where we are safe. And much too visible a residence for a family of Jews.’”

“But he insisted?” I prodded.

“Yes,” she sighed, and moved on quickly. “Now this Pagano was one of those Christian scoundrels who steal and cheat all week, then light expensive candles on Sundays for forgiveness.
You
know how they do it, Grazia . . .” I let the comment pass.

“Well, Pagano must have pulled off some monstrous cheat,” she continued, “for not only had he given money to all the convents in town, he had hired an apprentice from Messer Andrea Mantegna’s workshop to paint a likeness of the Virgin over his door with a little shrine under it. That was the one thing about the house that your father disliked.”

What about the marble halls and the carved friezes above the portals? Had my father suddenly in the thirty-eighth year of his life developed a taste for ostentation? I doubted it.

“Daniele swore he would not live under the sign of the Virgin even if he were offered the entire Reggio as his palace,” she went on. “He said that to do so was a double offense to God since it broke two of His commandments.”

The reference to the commandments sounded as if it had come out of my father’s mouth. It was her way to weave in a strand or two of truth with the lies so that one could not pick them apart.

“And what did you answer to that, Dorotea?” I asked innocently.

“I told him we must take steps to remove that Virgin,” she replied.

“Easier said than done,” I remarked.

“We sought permission directly from the Marchesana Isabella so that there would be no trouble afterwards.” Again Madonna Isabella. Would I never be free of the woman?

“Why did you not approach Marchese Francesco?” I asked.

“He is rarely at home these days. He is raising an army to fight the French king. The Venetians have named him General of the Holy League.”

“And does he leave all decisions to his wife, then?” I asked.

“The girl rules Mantova like a queen. Imagine a twenty-year-old lording it over all the graybeards at the Reggio. It’s amazing.”

Knowing Madonna Isabella, I was not amazed at all. She certainly had the bearing for it. And the nerve.

“And what did the
illustrissima
say to your petition?” I asked.

“She sent us to the bishop and he gave us permission on the spot to have the image erased, in return for several fine chalices we held in pawn.”

“And plenty of ducats into the bargain, I’ll wager.”

“How clever of you to guess that, Grazia.”

No guesswork was needed. Everyone knows that all priests have their price.

“So what is the great commotion about, Dorotea? You got the permission, erased the Virgin, and moved in. Whence comes this nonsense about a curse?” I asked. “All you’ve told me so far is a simple tale of greedy Jews who lust after
lusso
and fall victim to blackmail on account of it. The only mystery is how this happened to the dei Rossis. I had thought we were above such vulgarity.”

“Oh, Grazia, I fear you blame me for our misfortunes.” Good. She recognized the portrait of her that I had just drawn. “But you are quite wrong,” she went on. “I could not have known that this house had a curse on it.”

“What curse?” I asked.

“The Virgin’s curse. That is what the men shouted when they attacked this house and stoned us and wounded your father. That they were avenging the Virgin.”

Finally I understood her mysterious letter. My father’s wound, the evasions and lies that had met me at every turn, all centered on this accursed house and this accursedly acquisitive woman. “Look at me,” I ordered. And she complied.

“It was not my father but you who wanted this house, Dorotea.” She hung her head, a tacit admission.

“You worked on him as you know how to do. And to his discredit he gave in and agreed to buy a house he never wanted and that he must have known would bring only trouble and misery to his family. Well, now you have your heart’s desire and my father lies upstairs in what you call this cursed house, dying for your covetousness. Oh, this house is cursed all right, Dorotea. Not by the Christian Virgin. By you.” And fed to the teeth with the sight of that duplicitous face, I turned away from her and headed for the door.

“Oh, Grazia, I fear you hate me,” she wailed.

“No, Dorotea. When I was weak and powerless I hated you. Now that I am a woman with my own place in the world, hatred is beneath me. Now, I merely despise you.”

33

J
udah responded to my desperate summons at once, as I knew he would. But Napoli is a far way from Mantova and I spent the weeks between my confrontation with Dorotea and Judah’s arrival suspended in time like a fly in amber, waiting, watching, hoping, and praying.

The
banco
became both my fortress and my comfort. Its only defect was the constant presence of Ricca, who made herself at home there, galloping through the place like a baby elephant, braying loudly and knocking things over with her wide sleeves.

Once I began to take notice of her presence, I observed that somehow she always managed to bump into Jehiel on her peregrinations. And then to blame him loudly for the collision and to poke and prod him until they both exploded into fits of giggles.

High spirits, I told myself. Pranks. But one night something happened that forced me to acknowledge what I had been unwilling to admit. After putting Papa to bed for the night, the
famiglia
had gathered to enjoy the cool of evening in the garden. Jehiel was sitting on the bench next to me with Ricca on his other side. The days are long in June and dusk comes late. In the half-light, I saw him reach over and press his index finger into the nipple of one of Ricca’s half-exposed breasts, laughing while he did it. And she laughed too. They must have thought themselves hidden by the gathering dark. But Penina, sitting beside me, gasped. And I saw Asher, who was sitting on a little bench some distance off, half rise in response to what he had seen, then sink back into the shadows. But Dorotea did not sink back. She smiled.

After that, there was no way for me to avoid the truth nor, I felt, my responsibility to act on it. As we were leaving the garden I grasped Dorotea’s hand tightly and asked her to stay behind. I think she knew she had gone too far in so openly encouraging what could only be construed as lewd behavior. She pleaded a headache and made as if to take her hand away. But I held firm.

“It is important, Dorotea,” I told her. “Your headache will have to wait. Something must be done about Jehiel and Ricca.”