Painting Mona Lisa aka I, Mona Lisa

by Jeanne Kalogridis

  “You will see me again,” she promised, “no later than your father’s burial. If I am late, I will find you at the church.” She moved to the door, her step light; and then a thought stopped her and made her look back over her shoulder at me. “You forgave your father many things,” she said. “Too many. But perhaps I will try to forgive him, too.”

  Once she was gone, I went into my father’s bedroom. He looked cold and unhappy in his white linen shift, with his hands folded around a little red cross. I took it from his grasp and hid it in the wardrobe, under a pile of tunics where Loretta would not find it; and when I did so, I came across a gold-handled stiletto-neat and deadly-and hid it in my belt.

  The funeral was just after none, mid-afternoon, at Santo Spirito. Loretta had gone early to make the arrangements; since the plague was no longer widespread, it had been easier than she expected to hire gravediggers.

  The Mass said for my father was short and sad. Francesco came and sat impatiently through the service, then left abruptly, saying there was an emergency at the Signoria. I was relieved; it had grown almost impossible to hide my infinite loathing for him.

  Few stood at my father’s graveside: only Uncle Lauro, his wife and children, Loretta, my father’s stablehand, my father’s cook, and me. Matteo remained at home with the nursemaid. As I cast the first handful of earth onto my father’s coffin-nestled beside my mother’s sweet stone cherubs-I shed no tears.

  Perhaps fear stole them from me: Zalumma had not returned. It had been a mistake, I told myself, to send her out alone with such expensive jewels, especially so early when the streets were empty. If she had encountered a thief, who would have heard her cries for help?

  The time came to return to my father’s home for a funeral supper. Uncle Lauro and the others tried to coax me into walking back with them to my parents’ house, but I refused. I wanted a private moment with my father and mother; I wanted to remain in case Zalumma finally returned.

  When the others left, I was alone only briefly. One of Santo Spirito’s Augustinian monks approached, in his order’s traditional habit, with a capuchin’s gathered folds around his shoulders and his cowl raised.

  I kept my eyes focused on my father’s grave; I wanted no conversation. But he came to stand directly beside me and said, softly, “Madonna Lisa. I am so terribly sorry.”

  The sound of his voice disgusted me. I turned my face away.

  “You signaled with the book that you had found a letter,” he said, “but when you did not come I became concerned. I am saddened to learn that Antonio’s passing is the cause.”

  “Go away.” My voice was ragged. “Go away and never come back.”

  In the periphery of my vision, Leonardo bowed his head. “You are right to be angry: I could not save him, though you begged me to. But I could find no way. No way short of endangering you and Matteo. Perhaps when your grief eases, you will understand-”

  “I understand that you are a liar, that you have been one from the beginning. You knew-” I tried to utter the words and choked; I wheeled on him. “Giuliano is alive. And you let me live in grief, in agony, all this time. Like a good spy, you used me without heart!”

  He lifted his chin; he straightened. “I told you long ago that I could not tell you everything because it would endanger you. I have not used you. I care more for you than you know.”

  “The hell you care! You look at me so you can moon over your dear lost Giuliano.”

  He colored at that and had to compose himself. “How did you learn he was alive? From the letter, then?”

  “And from my father, before he died.”

  Inappropriately, with the familiarity of a husband, a brother, he seized my arm at the elbow. I resisted, but he would not let go. “Tell me, then, whom did you speak to of this? Does Francesco have any idea that you know Giuliano is alive?”

  I tried to shake my arm free; he tightened his grip. “No,” I said. “I’m not that big a fool. Why didn’t you tell me? Why have you let me suffer all this time?”

  “Look at you,” he said, with a sharpness and a coldness I had never heard in him. “You’re answering your own question. People kill and die because they cannot control their emotions. You did not know me very well, the first time we met at Santissima Annunziata. You had no reason to trust me. If I had told you Giuliano was alive, you would have written him immediately. Or you would have tried to go to Rome to find him. Nothing I might have said could have stopped you. And you, or he, or both of you, would have died as a result. If I ever told him that you married Giocondo because you thought he was dead, he’d-”

  “He’d have come to me, wouldn’t he? So you’ve lied to him, too. Why should I ever trust you now?” My face contorted; the tears that had been so long suppressed suddenly streamed unchecked down my cheeks. “Why should I tell you the contents of the letter? I’m warning him myself of the danger-”

  “God,” he whispered, his face so slack with fear that I fell silent. “Lisa-swear to me you have not tried to contact him!”

  “I’ll swear nothing.” My voice was ugly. “They mean to entice him here, and Piero, then kill them. They want to make it all repeat-rally the people against the Medici, as Messer Iacopo meant to do-and this time succeed. Do you think I am such a child that I would let Giuliano endanger himself? I told him not to come. I told him to stay.” I shook my arm. “Let go of me!”

  He reached for me again; I took a step away, back toward the gravediggers. “Lisa… They will discover this. They will kill you.”

  “They won’t find out. I’ve seen to it.”

  In the distance, someone called my name. I turned, and saw Loretta, half running toward us.

  “Lisa, please.” I had never heard such desperation in his voice. “You cannot go back with her-they will trap you, try to kill you, or use you against Giuliano. What must I do to convince you…? Everything I have ever done has been for your safety, and your child’s.” His eyes glittered; I realized, to my surprise, that they were filling with tears.

  A brilliant performance, I told myself. Loretta was still too distant to hear us, but close enough for me to see panic on her face; he was forced to drop my arm, lest she see a monk behaving so suspiciously. “You’ll have to convince me quickly, because I am going home.” And I turned my back to him and took a step toward Loretta.

  “Lisa, I love you,” he said quickly.

  I glanced at him over my shoulder. “Not so much as you loved Giuliano,” I said nastily.

  “More,” he said. “More, even, than I loved your mother.”

  I slowed. I stopped. I looked up at him.

  “Giuliano de’ Medici was not your father,” he said. “I am.”

  “Madonna Lisa!” Loretta called. She was breathless, red-faced, at the gate of the churchyard. “Matteo is sick! He is sick; they think it is la moria! Claudio is here, waiting to drive you home!”

  “Matteo is sick,” I said to him. He opened his mouth and reached for me again, but before he could touch me, before he could speak, I lifted my skirts and ran to meet Loretta.

  I rushed into the front entry of our palazzo and would have run up the stairs, but my husband called out from the dining hall.

  “Lisa! Come and meet our guest!”

  Francesco emerged, wearing his typical benign smile, and took my arm. “Come,” he said, and drew me with him before I had time to protest.

  A man sat at the middle of our long dining table; at the sight of me, he rose and bowed. He was a good head shorter than Francesco and twenty years younger. His short tunic, sharp goatee, and accent smacked of Rome. “Madonna Lisa, is it?”

  “Sir,” I said, “you must forgive me. My son is very ill. I must go to him.”

  Francesco’s little smile did not waver. “There is no hurry. Come sit with us.”

  His placid expression was entirely out of place; I panicked. Had my child died, and was Francesco now going to attempt to soothe me? Was this stranger a physician, here to comfort me? “Where is Matt
eo?” I demanded.

  “Safe,” he said, and that single, sharp word was double-edged.

  He did not try to stop me as I fled up the stairs, stumbling over my skirts, frantic. When I threw the door to the nursery open, I saw the room was empty-neatly cleaned of Matteo’s things-and the nursemaid’s room was empty, as well. There were no linens on his little bed, in the crib.

  I went back down the stairs, a madwoman. Francesco stopped me on the second level, on the landing in front of his chambers.

  “Where is he?” I demanded, seething, trembling. “Where have you taken him?”

  “We are all in the study,” he said calmly, and took my arm the instant before I reached for the knife.

  I scanned the study: My baby was not there. Instead, our guest was sitting at the little round table in the center of the room, in front of the fireplace. Two men flanked him: Claudio and one of the soldiers who had guarded our palazzo immediately after Savonarola’s trial by fire.

  The soldier held a knife to Zalumma’s throat.

  “How can you do this?” I hissed at Francesco. “How can you do this to our son?”

  He made a soft sound of disgust. “I have eyes. He is like his mother: of questionable heritage.” My cold Francesco.

  He guided me to a chair across from our guest; I sank into it, my gaze fastened on Zalumma. Her face was stony, her stance unrepentant. I looked down. On the table in front of me was the letter to Giuliano, unfolded and open so that it could be easily read. Beside it rested a quill and inkpot, and a fresh piece of parchment.

  Francesco stood beside me and rested his hand on my shoulder. “There is a problem with this letter. It needs to be rewritten.”

  I balked. I looked at Zalumma’s eyes: They were unfathomable black mirrors. Our esteemed guest nodded faintly at the soldier, and he pressed the tip of the knife against her white throat until she gasped. A dark trickle escaped the flesh there and collected in the hollow at the base of her neck. She looked away; she did not want me to see her face and how frightened she was, to see that she knew she was going to die.

  “Don’t,” I said. “I will write whatever you want.” I sized up the soldier, Claudio, and the goateed man, all on the other side of the table; I glanced at Francesco, standing beside me. If I reached for the stiletto hidden in my belt, I would be stopped before I ever got around the table, and Zalumma would be killed.

  Francesco made a gracious gesture to the goateed man. “Ser Salvatore,” he said. “Please.”

  Salvatore put his elbows on the table and leaned forward on them, toward me. “Copy the first two lines,” he said. “The letter must sound as if you wrote it.”

  I dipped the quill in the pot, and scratched out the words:

  My love, my love,

  I was lied to, told you were dead. But my heart never changed toward you.

  “Very good,” Salvatore said, then dictated the next lines.

  Your son and I are in mortal danger; we are captured by your enemies. If you and your brother Piero do not appear at Santa Maria del Fiore for High Mass on the twenty-fourth of May, they will kill us. Send troops, or anyone else in your place, and we will die.

  Your loving wife,

  Lisa di Antonio Gherardini

  “Giocondo,” he had said, but I stubbornly would not add it.

  Francesco folded the letter and handed it to Claudio, who pocketed it. “Now,” my supposed husband said, turning to me. “Let’s talk about your spying.”

  “I didn’t mean to spy,” I said. “I was curious, and read just the one letter…”

  “Curious. That’s not what Isabella says. She says that you leave a book on your night table as a signal, for her to tell a certain Giancarlo that you will be going to pray the next day.”

  Salvatore’s tone was casual, almost friendly. “Who do you meet at Santissima Annunziata, Lisa?”

  “Just Giancarlo,” I answered quickly. “I go to tell him what the letter says.”

  “She’s lying.” Francesco’s tone was brutal; he had used it before, when he had uttered the word whore.

  Salvatore was very, very still. “I think your husband is right, Madonna Lisa. And I think that he is right when he says that you are very fond of your slave. She was your mother’s, yes?”

  I stared down at the table. “I go to meet a spy,” I said. “An older man, with gray hair. I don’t know his name. I found Giancarlo in your study one night, with the letter, and I was curious. I read it.”

  “How long ago?” Salvatore asked.

  “I don’t know-a year, perhaps two. He said he worked for the Medici. I decided to do what he told me-to go to Santissima Annunziata and tell the old man about the letters.”

  Salvatore glanced back at the soldier who held Zalumma. Simply glanced, and lifted a finger.

  I followed his gaze. The soldier’s knife made a quick, small movement beneath Zalumma’s jaw. Quick and small and simple; I heard the sound of fluid spilling. She would have fallen straight down, but he caught and lowered her. She went to the floor languid and graceful as a swan.

  “Call a servant,” Salvatore told the soldier. “Get something to clean this up.”

  I screamed and reared up; Francesco pushed me straight back down.

  Salvatore faced me. “You are lying, Madonna Lisa. You know that the young man’s name is not Giancarlo; it is Gian Giacomo. And you know the old man’s name.”

  I sobbed, hysterical, unable to stop, to speak. Zalumma was dead and I wanted to die.

  Francesco had to speak very loudly to be heard over my weeping. “Come, now, Lisa, shall I send for little Matteo? We can bring him in here, as well. Or will you tell us the name of your old man?”

  “Bring him,” I gasped. “Bring him, and show me he is alive. Because if he is not, you will have to kill me.”

  Francesco let go the most irritated of sighs, but Salvatore nodded to him to leave the room. He returned moments later, followed by the frightened young nursemaid, stooping as she led Matteo in by the hand.

  He laughed and wanted to come to me; he held out his arms for me. But when he saw Zalumma on the floor and his mother sobbing, he began to cry himself. I reached for him as Francesco lifted him up and handed him back to the nursemaid; my fingers grazed the dimpled back of his hand.

  “All right,” Francesco clucked, and closed the door over them.

  He and Salvatore turned to me. “The name, Lisa,” Francesco said.

  I could not see Zalumma where she had fallen behind the table, but I sensed her body the way one might sense the warmth of a fire. I bowed my head and looked down at my hands, and said very softly, “Leonardo da Vinci.”

  LXIX

  I did not look at Zalumma as they led me out; I did not want to remember her as I remembered my mother, dull-eyed and spattered with blood. Francesco and Salvatore were speaking as Claudio led me away; Salvatore’s tone was heated. “Now shall we have to amend the plan? If she has told this to others, to this Leonardo…”

  Francesco was cool. “Isabella said she has had no time to go to Santissima Annunziata. She discovered the letter before she went to see her father; she has been nowhere since then, except to his house and to his funeral.”

  They were drifting words which meant nothing to me at the time. They would make a difference later.

  For the next few weeks, I was confined to my chamber. Different men stood guard in the corridor outside my door. Francesco told the servants that I had been discovered spying for the Medici, and that the Signoria had not yet decided whether to bring charges; out of kindness, they had permitted him to keep me under close watch at our palazzo.

  On the first day they locked me in my room, I was alone for an hour and, despite crippling grief, I realized that I should hide my father’s stiletto before I was searched or undressed. I slid it deep into the feather layer of my mattress, on the far side by the wall; and when, that night, Elena came with a tray of food and the intention of unlacing my gown, I faced her without concern.

&n
bsp; Elena’s ever-serene gaze and smile had vanished; she was troubled in my presence and could not meet my eyes.

  I struggled very hard to speak coherently, without tears. “I want to wash her,” I said.

  Elena set the tray down on the table near the hearth and glanced at me, then swiftly dropped her gaze to the floor. “What’s that, Madonna?”

  “I would like to help wash Zalumma’s body. She was very dear to me. And…” My voice began to break. “I want to see her properly buried. If you would ask Francesco-he could send a guard with me. She helped birth me. Please… if you would ask him…”

  Saddened, she bowed her head. “I will ask him, Madonna. He has no heart and will refuse, but I will ask.”

  I sat in a chair in front of the cold hearth, closed my eyes, and pressed steepled hands to my lips, but I was too overwhelmed to pray. Elena moved beside me and gently, briefly, touched my forearm.

  “I will do my best to convince him, Madonna.” She hesitated. “It is terrible, what they did to Zalumma… They say she was a spy, that she was dangerous, but I know better. I was not always with Ser Francesco’s household. I came with my mistress, Madonna Nannina. I loved her so, and when she died…” She shook her head. “I wanted to go to another house. I wish now I had. I am afraid of him.”

  “And Matteo,” I said, anguished. “If I could know whether-”

  Her expression lightened; she looked in my eyes then. “Your child is well. They haven’t hurt him-I suppose that is too heartless even for Ser Francesco to consider. They are keeping him downstairs, near the servants.”

  The ache in my chest eased; I put a hand to it. Emboldened, I asked, “And Isabella?”

  “Gone. Escaped-” She broke off and said no more, realizing that she might be endangering herself. She unlaced my gown and put it in the wardrobe, and I was left alone. Outside in the corridor, I heard the scrape of a chair against the floor, and a heavy body settling into it. Claudio, I supposed, or the soldier.

  I was dazed that first night, overwhelmed. I had lost so many: my mother, Giuliano, my father… but Zalumma had always been there, caring for me. Zalumma, who would have known how to comfort me now that Matteo had been taken away. I told myself repeatedly that Salvatore might want to hurt Matteo, but Francesco would never allow it. But my hope for my child was a fine thread; if I clung to it tightly, it would break.