The Secret Book of Grazia dei Rossi (81 page)

“She did that?”

“Kept us tipsy all the time. Then beat us when we fell asleep at the tubs. If you like I can show you the marks.”

I begged her not to trouble herself. I could tolerate her words. I could not tolerate her wounds.

“Tell me how you propose to operate this honest establishment,” I asked.

“For one thing, I will use both soap and lye in the true Spanish way, not delude the customers with the tall tale that leaving the lye in the clothes gets rid of stains.”

“Does it not, then?”

“Madonna, do you not look to see what happens in your washhouse?”

I had to admit that I did not.

“Your mother taught you better,” she admonished me. “But you needn’t worry about that now. For my laundry will give you perfect service. We will soak the clothes and soap them and put them in a basket and drain them and leave them all night in the basket so that the lye can drain out, which is what that Spanish bitch never took the time to do.”

“It sounds like a good method,” I commented.

“It is the
only
method for an
honest
laundress. Do you agree then? On the money?” I gave her my hand on it.

From that time on she arrived each Monday to collect our laundry and to deliver the previous week’s hamper. But she refused to meet you or Judah, or even to see Jehiel. At first I insisted. Then I understood that in spite of her claims not to be ashamed of her state, her pride would not permit them to see her so degraded. And I no longer pressed her.

Nor did I have any success in reconciling my husband and my brother. The savage discord that had erupted between them over Lazzarelli destroyed whatever little trust they had built up out of their mutual love for me, leaving only bitterness and stubbornness on both sides. And thus things remained until Jehiel left Roma for Portugal to accompany David Reubeni in soliciting funds for a crusade against the Turk.

Loyalty to my brother took me to the embarkation point to salute the holy band as it set off. By then Reubeni’s brief celebrity with the fickle Roman mob had run out and his party consisted only of ten raggedy Jews without so much as a horse among them. But their leader appeared more resplendent than ever. He had given up white (had he lost his purity in Roma? I wondered) and was clad in a gabardine of red damask and a black velvet cap embroidered with gold and pearls — personal gifts to Prince David from Pope Clement, Jehiel whispered to me proudly. My brother, alas, still wore the same shabby cloak in which he had arrived at our portal. To see him so dilapidated, his face gaunt, his body shrunken — for he had taken to fasting in emulation of his idol — was a sight to tear your heart from your body.

Yet he was happy on that day. His eyes shone with high hope and optimism as he described for me the glorious days ahead. With Judah’s forebodings buzzing in my brain, I begged him to be prudent, if not for his own sake, at least for the sake of his motherless boys.

“Promise me,” I begged him, “that you will not tell fortunes. Or sell amulets. And, above all, that you not theologize disputatiously with Christians.”

He took the request as an insult.

“What do you take me for, a simpleton?” he demanded.

No, not a simpleton, I thought. Worse. You are the son who has not even the capacity to inquire.

He walked off to join his crusade without a backward glance or a final embrace. It was a bitter parting.

FROM DANILO’S ARCHIVE

TO GRAZIA DEI ROSSI DEL MEDIGO AT ROMA

My dearest and most beloved Grazia:

I am now at liberty to reveal to you a secret I have concealed over this past year. Prepare yourself for a shock. I am married. Sit down, Grazia. Take a deep breath. Now read on.

Your brother Jehiel and I were married in a private ceremony on the eve of his departure with the holy David. In one stroke God granted me two of my most ardent prayers: to be married to the man I love and to have you as my sister. May I begin again and salute you correctly:

My dearest and most beloved sister: (Ah, it is good to write that word.)

I know you will forgive me for holding back my news. It was not my design but my Jehiel’s. He made me promise a solemn oath not to reveal this marriage to you until he had left Roma. Now he is halfway to Portugal and I am released from my oath. Rejoice with me in my happiness, Grazia, I beg you.

Perhaps you guessed that we lived in this house as man and wife long before we went to the rabbi. That was a secret I had no difficulty in keeping from you. I lived in shame of it every day. My only excuse is that I could not help myself. You above all people know how long I have loved your brother When I finally found a way into his heart through his children, I took it. I knew that all I was to him was a nursemaid and a bedmate, but I was content with my portion. To me, he is everything.

I pray every day for my husband to come back safely. On that day, after all the years of waiting, I will begin to live the life I was meant to live. Pray with me, Grazia.

Your loving sister, Penina dei Rossi, at Ferrara, July 20, 1525.

TO THE FAMILY OF JUDAH DEL MEDIGO AT ROMA

Greetings from Portugal, dear sister, brother, and nephew!

Already this land is a second home to me. In every great city we enter, there come Jews and Gentiles too, men and women, great and small, so worshipful of my master that he must warn them continually not to kiss his hand, since that honor is reserved to the King, and my master does not wish to steal glory from any man.

This King of Portugal is a real Christian; he loves all the Jews. But unfortunately we have a powerful enemy at court, a certain Don Miguel who seeks to alienate my master from King John. Night and day he whispers in the King’s ear that our party is come to restore the Marrano
conversos
to the faith of the Jews. But the King loves us. Of that there can be no doubt. Two days ago he invited our party to celebrate a joy day with him in the open air. When we arrived, there were many guests sitting upon the railing of the loggia watching the dancing below. And the King called to one of his officers, “Drive away the men who are sitting between the arches . . .” (Mind you, they were great lords, every one.) “And arrange for the Jewish ambassador and his party to have seats.” Does that not bespeak his love and respect for my prince? Still, we are in the midst of suspicion here.

The King, a very forthright man, spoke plainly what was on his mind. “His Majesty hears,” the interpreter informed us, “that Prince David has come to restore the Marranos to the Jewish religion and that the Marranos pray with him and read in his books night and day and that he has made of the house I gave him a synagogue for the use of these Marranos and that they all kiss his hand and bow to him. I am pleased that he has come to help me, but listen to this: he is ruining my kingdom with his presence.”

Whereupon my master, now very angry at these slanders, said to the King, “How can your heart harbor such ill suspicions of me, I who come here in God’s service to do a meritorious deed? Have you forgotten, sire, that I too am the son of a king, a king of the seed of David, son of Jesse?”

And the King bowed his head in shame and tried to pacify my master with good words. But Prince David was no longer satisfied with words. He had come for firearms and weapons and help against the Turk, he said. From here he proposed to go into Germany to make the same request of the Holy Roman Emperor, whose hatred of the Turks was beyond question. The barb hit home. The King promised to supply us with eight ships and four thousand large and small firearms to use against the infidels. And all he exacted in return was the master’s promise to tell the Jews not to kiss his hand.

Rejoice. Sing Hosannahs. The land of Ishmael will return to Israel. The Word of the Prophet will come to pass.

Your brother in Jehovah,

(signed) Jehiel dei Rossi at Almeida, Portugal.

August 23, 1525.

TO GRAZIA DEI ROSSI DEL MEDIGO AT ROMA

Beloved sister and brother:

Today my master, Prince David Reubeni, has gone off to work his wonders in Germany and who do you think he has left behind to sail the King’s eight ships to the Holy Land? My proud answer is that I, your brother, have been deputized to lead this historic armada. Yes, the master has named me captain of his flotilla with eight ships under my command carrying four thousand firearms for the destruction of the Turk.

Dear sister and brother, I will yet make you proud. All my life I have been wandering in a desert of confusion as barren of hope as the lost tribes of Israel. At last like them, after forty years of wandering and waiting, I am let into the Promised Land. Finally I know why I was put on earth. My entire being sings in ecstasy. Lazzarelli spoke the truth: We are all gods if only we would act like gods.

Your brother (signed with the initial “J.”) at Tavira.

October 18, 1525.

TO GRAZIA DEI ROSSI DEL MEDIGO AT ROMA

Dear sister:

Four months in this stinking port and still no sign of my promised ships. But I do not lose hope nor must you. The King is a man of honor, I am certain he will fulfill his promises. Meanwhile I seem to have taken the place of Prince David in the hearts of our people. They call on me to make peace between them when they are in dispute and wherever I go they listen to my voice. I begin to believe that God has decreed this delay so that I can perform His work among these people. Be assured that whatever task He asks of me, I am willing to perform it.

Yours in the service of our Lord. (signed “J.”)

TO GRAZIA DEI ROSSI DEL MEDIGO AT ROMA

Beloved sister:

The worst has come to pass. Only a miracle of haste and generosity can save me now.

How this came to be, there is no time to tell. It is enough for you to know that I am held here under house arrest by the magistrate of the town in ransom of five hundred golden ducats. Find this money for me, Grazia. Get it to me quickly before they hand me over to the King’s Great Inquisitor. Once the churchmen get their hands on me, I am doomed. They burn Marranos every day here for crimes less serious than the one of which I am accused.

My life is in your hands, trusted sister. Do not throw it away through dilatoriness. Hurry! Hurry! Each day brings me closer to the pyre. At night in dreams I can feel the flames licking my toes. The agony. The terror. Save me, sister, for God’s sake.

(signed) Jehiel dei Rossi at Tavira.

June 3, 1526.

53

T
he morning we received Jehiel’s desperate plea for help, Judah took up my brother’s cause. He was packed up and on his way to Portugal before the sun set. No matter that he considered Jehiel an irresponsible fool. He was our fool and needed help.

With Judah’s departure for Portugal a cloud of despondency settled over me. The sensible part of me told myself that Jehiel was an agile cat who always leapt to safety at the last moment. Another more insistent voice whispered that my brother Jehiel had finally exhausted his credit with Fortuna and that this time nothing could save him. Days I sat by the window waiting for news of his fate. Nights I dreamed him on the rack screaming, the torturer towering over his broken body.

God knows where these unhealthy fantasies might have led me had not Madonna Isabella reappeared in my life. Whether or not she knew of my situation I had no way of knowing. How she found my whereabouts in Roma is another mystery. These people have ways of finding out things. All I can report to you is that one afternoon a servant appeared at my door commanding me — there is no other word for the tone of that summons — to present myself at the Palazzo Colonna in the Piazza S.S. Apostoli the next morning. Years had elapsed since the woman last laid eyes on me. Yet the possibility that I might be unable or even unwilling to materialize at the snap of her fingers was not even suggested. Then again, Madonna Isabella has never seen the need to consider the personal feelings of anyone below the rank of duke.

Mind you, she did rise from her dais and come forward to greet me when I was ushered into her presence. And she did hold out her arms, but whether to embrace me or to observe me more closely, I could not know.