Instinctively I slipped my hand into the pocket of the brand-new heavy overcoat, bought on the Abbot’s credit, where I kept all the instructions we needed for the journey. According to the documents the notary had given us in Rome, we would find lodgings at a certain address, where we were to present ourselves. The street name was promising: Via di Porta Coeli: Heaven’s Gate Street.
In the unreal silence created by snow, the carriage proceeded slowly along Carinthia Street, which leads from the gate of the same name to the city centre. Cloridia gazed around herself open-mouthed: amid the splendid palaces with their aristocratic mantles of white and the carriages emerging from side streets, swarms of well-wrapped up serving women dawdled idly, as if it were Sunday and not the middle of the working week.
She would have liked to ask the coach driver for an explanation, but the difficulty of the language held her back.
I, however, had eyes only for the spire of St Stephen’s, which I saw rising over the roofs on the right and looming ever larger. It was, I reflected, the sacred pinnacle on which the Ottomans had trained their cannons every day during the summer of 1683, while on this side of the walls, within the city I now saw was thriving, the besieged citizens had resisted heroically, struggling not only against the enemy’s projectiles but also against hunger, disease, lack of ammunition . . .
The coach driver, to whom I had shown the piece of paper with the address we were supposed to go to, drew up in an elegant road leading off Carinthia Street. We had reached our destination.
I was a little surprised when, after we had stepped out, the coach driver pointed at a bell rope to announce our arrival: it was the front door of a convent.
“Uno momento, uno momento,” said a shadowy figure in awkward Italian, appearing behind the thick dark grating beside the bell rope.
Owing to my still shaky grasp of German I had not understood that the address we were bound for was that of a nuns’ convent.
On hearing our names, the shadowy figure gave a nod of assent. We were expected. Two days earlier the coach driver, during a pause on the journey, had sent a messenger ahead to announce our imminent arrival.
I unloaded our luggage with the help of the coach driver, from whom I learned that we were about to enter one of the largest convents in the city and almost certainly the most important.
We were received in a large entrance hall with little light, which we left a few minutes later to emerge into the daylight again, in the colonnade of an internal cloister: a long gallery of white stones, adorned with the images of sisters who had shown virtue to the highest degree. Following an elderly nun who seemed to be mute, but who perhaps simply did not know our language, we rapidly passed through the colonnade and reached the guest rooms. A pair of adjoining rooms had been allotted to us. While Cloridia and my son collapsed wearily onto the bed, I set about carrying our bags into the rooms with the help of a young idiot, temporarily hired by the nuns to clear out and clean up the cellars. Stooping and clumsy, but at the same time muscular and tall, the idiot was also extremely chatty and, from the tone of his conversation, I gathered that he was asking me questions about our journey and such matters. A pity that I understood not a single word.
After taking leave of the idiot with a broad smile and closing the door on him, I looked around myself. The room was very bare, but it had all one might need; and in any case it looked much better than the cellar of tufo we had been living in for the last two years in Rome and where, alas, we had left our daughters. I turned my eyes to Cloridia.
I was expecting a barrage of complaints, reproofs and scepticism about Abbot Melani’s promises: lodging with nuns was the very worst thing that could happen to her, I knew that. The brides of Christ were the only women my wife really could not get along with.
But nothing came from her lips. Lying on the bed, still clasping our boy who was coughing in his sleep, Cloridia was gazing around herself in bewilderment, with the vacant gaze of one about to yield to the dark drowsiness of exhaustion.
Our son gave me a start. His fit of coughing was more acute than ever. It seemed to be getting worse. A moment later there came a knock at the door.
“Goat’s fat and spelt flour with a drop of vermouth oil, to rub on his chest. And his head must rest on this pillow of spelt.”
These words, in impeccable Italian, came from a young nun, who entered our rooms with courteous but firm solicitude.
“I’m Camilla, Chormaisterin of this convent of Augustinian nuns,” she introduced herself, while, without even asking for Cloridia’s permission, she arranged the pillow under the little boy’s head and, pulling up his shirt, rubbed the ointment onto his chest.
“Chor . . . maisterin?” I stammered, after stooping to kiss her robe and thanking her for the hospitality.
“Yes, conductor of the choir,” she confirmed in a benign tone.
“It’s a surprise to hear such perfect Italian here in Vienna, Mother.”
“I’m Roman, like you; Trasteverine, to be precise. Camilla de’ Rossi is my secular name. But don’t call me Mother, please: I’m just a secular sister.”
Cloridia had not moved from her bed. I saw her peeking sidelong at our guest.
“And nothing to eat but light soup for two weeks,” concluded the Chormaisterin, looking closely at the child.
“I knew it. The usual generosity . . .”
Cloridia’s harsh and unexpected outburst made me flush with embarrassment; I was afraid we would soon be driven out, but the victim reacted with an amused laugh.
“I see that you know us well,” she answered, not in the least offended. “But I guarantee that in this case my fellow sisters’ proverbial stinginess has nothing to do with it. Spelt soup with crushed prune stones cures all fluxions of the chest.”
“You treat people with spelt too,” remarked Cloridia in a dull voice after a moment’s silence. “So did my mother.”
“And so we have been doing ever since the early days of our holy sister Hildegard, Abbess of Bingen,” Camilla declared with a sweet smile. “But I’m pleased to hear that your mother appreciated it too; one day, if you feel like it, will you tell me about her?”
Cloridia responded with hostile silence.
She was truly amiable, Camilla de’ Rossi, I thought, despite my wife’s diffidence. She was dressed in a white habit, its sleeves lined with fine, pure Indian linen, and a hood in the same linen with a black crépon veil hanging down behind.
The face that the hood and veil left uncovered belonged to neither of the two physiognomies peculiar to young nuns (or secular sisters, it made little difference): she had neither the watery, dull eyes surrounded by pudgy pink and white cheeks like ham lard, nor the hard little tetchy eyes set in a sallow, scraggy complexion. Camilla de’ Rossi was an attractive, blooming girl, whose dark, proud eyes and lively mouth reminded me of my wife’s features just a few years earlier.
There was another knock.
“Your lunch has arrived,” announced the Chormaisterin, as she opened the door to two scullery maids carrying trays.
The meal, curiously, was all based on spelt: flat loaves of spelt and chestnuts, cream of apples and spelt, a pie of spelt grains and fennel.
“Now hurry up,” urged Camilla after we had refreshed ourselves, “you’re expected in half an hour’s time at the notary.”
“So you know . . .” I said, astonished.
“I know everything,” she cut me short. “I’ve already sent word to the notary that you’ve arrived. So come along; I’ll look after your boy.”
“You don’t really expect me to leave my son in your hands?” protested Cloridia.
“We are all in the hands of Our Lord, my daughter,” answered the Chormaisterin maternally, though as to age she could have been our daughter.
Having said this, she ushered us with gentle firmness towards the door.
I pleaded to Cloridia with my eyes not to offer any resistance nor to make any of her less gracious remarks about the tribe of the b
rides of Christ.
“Anything, if it means I don’t see soot again,” she merely said.
I thanked God that my consort, thanks to her hatred of the chimney-sweeping trade, had finally given in. And perhaps the young nun, who seemed to have genuinely taken our little boy’s health to heart, was beginning to break down Cloridia’s wall of diffidence.
When we stepped outside we found the convent’s idiot leaning against the wall and waiting for us; the Chormaisterin gave him a quick confirmatory glance.
“This is Simonis. He’ll take you to the notary.”
“But Mother,” I tried to object, “I don’t know German very well, and I don’t understand when he speaks to me. When we got here . . .”
“What you heard wasn’t German: Simonis is Greek. And when he wants he can make himself understood, trust me,” she said with a smile, and without another word she closed the door behind us.
“Very generous this donation of Abbot Milani, yes, yes?”
It was with these words, spoken in diligent Italian with only Melani’s name pronounced incorrectly, that the notary welcomed us into his office, gazing at us from behind his little spectacles; unfortunately it was not clear whether the words constituted an affirmation or a question.
We had arrived at the office after a short walk through the snow, during which our limbs had nonetheless grown exceedingly numb. The terrible winter of 1709, which had brought our family and the whole of Rome to its knees, had been nothing in comparison with this, and I realised that the heavy overcoats we had bought before our departure were as much protection as an onion skin. Cloridia was tormented by her fluxion of the chest.
“Yes, yes,” the notary repeated several times, after bidding us remove our coats and shoes and inviting us to sit down opposite him. Simonis had remained in the anteroom.
While we enjoyed the warmth of an enormous and rich cast-iron stove coated with majolica, such as I had never seen before, he began to leaf through a file, whose cover bore words in gothic characters.
Cloridia and I, our chests bursting with silent tension, looked on as his hands riffled through the papers. My poor wife lifted a hand to her temple: I realised she was suffering one of those terrible headaches that had tortured her ever since we had fallen into poverty. What news did those papers hold? Was the end of our troubles inscribed there, or was it all just another hoax? I could feel my belly churning with anxiety.
“The documents are all here: Geburtsurkunde, Kaufkontrakt and, above all, the Hofbefreyung,” said the notary at last, in a mixture of Italian and German. “Check the accuracy of the data,” he added, placing the documents before me, although I had by no means grasped their nature: “Signor Abbot Milani, your benefactor . . .”
“Melani,” I corrected him, aware that Atto’s signature could give rise to similar misunderstandings.
“Ah, yes,” he said, after examining a page carefully. “As I was saying, Signor Abbot Melani and his procurators have been very diligent and precise. But the imperial court is very strict: if anything is wrong, there is no hope.”
“The imperial court?” I asked, full of hope.
“If the court doesn’t accept it, the donation cannot take effect,” the notary continued. “But now read this Geburtsurkunde carefully and tell me if all is in order.”
Having said this, he placed before me the first of four documents, which – to my no small surprise – proved to be a birth certificate bearing my name, specifying the day, month, year and place of my birth, as well as my paternity and maternity. This was truly singular, given that I was a foundling, and not even I knew when, where or to whom I had been born.
“This, then, is the Gesellenbrief,” insisted our interlocutor, who, after gazing out of the window, suddenly seemed to be in a great hurry. “I repeat, the court is very strict. Especially when it comes to the question of apprenticeship; otherwise the confraternity could create problems for you.”
“The confraternity?” I asked, not having the foggiest idea what he was talking about.
“Now let’s proceed, since there is little time. You can ask your questions later.”
I would have liked to say that I still had not understood what purpose all those documents (false ones, to boot) served. Above all, the notary’s words did not explain what Atto Melani’s donation consisted of. Nonetheless, I obeyed and refrained from commenting. Cloridia kept quiet too, her eyes glazed by the migraine and her fluxion of the chest.
“The Hofbefreyung, to tell the truth, is less urgent: I’m here to guarantee its validity. Since time is short, you could look it over in the carriage.”
“In the carriage?” said Cloridia in surprise. “Where to?”
“To check that what is contained in the Kaufkontrakt is correct, where else?” he answered, as if stating the obvious, and he got to his feet, beckoning us to follow him.
We had entered the notary’s office with a thousand hopes in our hearts, and now we were leaving it with just as many questions on our minds.
We were a little surprised when the carriage that was carrying us – my wife, myself, Simonis and the notary – began to travel away from the centre of the city. We soon reached the walls and passed through one of the city gates, emerging onto a bare and icy plain.
On the journey, while my wife and I huddled in a corner against the cold and Simonis gazed out of the window with inexpressive eyes, I observed the notary and pondered. He seemed to be in a great hurry; to do exactly what, was not clear. There was no doubt that the two documents he had set before me were blatant forgeries, and came from Abbot Melani. Atto – I remembered well – was well versed in the art of falsifying papers, even more important ones than these . . . This time, I had to acknowledge, his aim had been less reprehensible: he simply wanted to make the donation effective.
The notary returned my gaze: “I know what you’re wondering, and I apologise for not having thought of it before. It is certainly opportune that I should at this point explain where we are going.”
“About time,” I thought, while Cloridia, suddenly reanimated, mustered her remaining strength to sit up and prepare herself for what the notary was about to say.
“In short, I should attempt to distract your good lady from the tedium of the journey by pointing out to her the forms, qualities and appearances of this imperial city,” the notary began in a pompous tone, clearly very proud of his home town. “Outside the city walls, and all around it, is a broad level area of unpaved earth, clear of all vegetation, which makes it possible, in the event of an enemy attack, to get a clear view of the besiegers. To the east of the residential area lies the river Danube, which with generous and serpentine sinuosity flows from north to south, and from west to east, forming within its curves numerous little islands, marshes and bogs. Further east, beyond this damp, lagoon-like area, begins the great plain that stretches uninterruptedly as far as the Kingdom of Poland and the empire of the Czar of Russia. Southwards lies another flat area, leading towards Carinthia, the region bordering on Italy, whence you yourselves came. Westwards and northwards, however, the city is surrounded by woody hills, culminating in the Kahlenberg – the Monte Calvo or Bald Mountain as you Italians call it – the extreme point of the Alps, which rears up above the Danube, bastion of the West facing the great eastern plain of Pannonia.”
Despite the notary’s affable eloquence, Cloridia’s face continued to darken and I myself was conjecturing with some trepidation as to the substance of the donation. If only this odd notary would come out and tell us just what it consisted of!
“I know what you’re thinking,” he said in that moment, suspending the orographic lesson on Vienna and turning to me: “You will be wondering about the precise nature of your benefactor’s donation, and what prestige it bears. Well now, as you can read yourselves in the Hofbefreyung,” he specified, setting one of the documents before me with great care, “Abbot Melani has procured for you – in the suburb of the Josephina, near St Michael, where we are now heading – a p
ost as hofbefreyter Meister.”
“What does that mean?” Cloridia and I asked in unison.
“Obvious: in hofbefreit, hof means ‘court’ and befreit ‘freed’. You have been made free to become meister, or master, by licence of the court, or by imperial decree, however you want to put it.”
We looked at him quizzically.
“It’s because you are not a Viennese citizen,” the notary explained. “And so, given the urgent, the extremely urgent, need that the Emperor has of your services, your benefactor has generously begged and obtained from the court, on your behalf, the Gewerbeberechtigung,” he concluded, without realising that he still had not clarified the main point.
“And that is?” pressed Cloridia with incredulous hope at the notary’s unexpected words.
“The right to exercise the profession, of course! And to be welcomed into the confraternity,” explained the notary impatiently, looking at us as if we were two savages – and ungrateful ones, to boot.
As I was to learn with time, the Viennese take any unfamiliarity with their language for a lack of civility and grey matter.
At the notary’s sharp reaction my already enfeebled spouse fell completely silent, afraid of irritating him and so creating yet more untimely complications for Atto’s long-awaited and inscrutable donation, now so close at hand.
What had I become Meister or master of? What was the profession that the Emperor was benevolently allowing me to exercise despite not being a Viennese citizen? And, above all, what services did the benevolent Sovereign require of me with such urgency?
“You will have to lead a virtuous and blameless life, carry out your duties properly and serve as a model and example to the Gesellen,” he began again enigmatically. “And that’s not all: as you can read in the Kaufkontrakt, or the purchasing contract, which Abbot Melani magnanimously concluded in your name, Haus, Hof and Weingarten are listed! What incomparable generosity! But here we are at last. Just in time, before twilight.”
Veritas (Atto Melani) Page 3
