The Food Taster

by Peter Elbling

  O my soul! I could hear the courtiers' brains clanging around in their heads as if a madman had been let loose in the campanile of Santa Caterina! They scrunched their faces up and stared at their half-eaten artichokes as if the answer lay among its leaves. Piero's tic started violently.

  Septivus said, 'To the immortal Dante, three is the highest number because it represents God the Father, Christ His Son, and the Holy Ghost. Thus it is only right that our world would reflect the Holy Trinity and be a triangle.'

  Federico nodded and bit into an orange.

  Cecchi scratched his beard and furrowed his brow; he always looked as if he had witnessed some tragedy that was forever replaying itself in front of his eyes. 'I must agree,' he said. 'Our lives are divided into three — past, present, and future. Since we are a mirror of the universe, it is only natural that the universe would also be in three. What I mean is, three sides, as in a triangle.'

  This was also clever for since Federico had not objected to Septivus's answer, Cecchi was wise to climb on its back.

  'I too agree,' Bernardo said, spitting some fennel seeds over his shoulder, 'but for sounder reasons. In numerology, to which astrology is closely related, three is the highest power. Now it is well known that the stars, the moon, and the sun govern the earth; therefore, the earth reflects the wisdom of the heavens and thus the earth is unquestionably a triangle.'

  'Not just a triangle,' Piero giggled, terrified he would be left out. 'But a special triangle that has two long sides and one short side. And Corsoli,' he said, when everything had become so quiet we could hear Federico's orange digesting, 'is at the topmost point.'

  Federico stared at him as if he had spoken in Greek. Then he looked around the table, gobbled another piece of orange and said, 'It was a stupid idea.'

  Again everyone was still. Then they burst out laughing, slapping their sides and wiping their eyes as if it was the funniest thing they had ever heard. Federico raised the tablecloth to wipe his chin, and I, who was standing behind him and a little to one side, saw him smile.

  Piero said, 'If my good friends will allow me to speak for them, let me say the duke has made us all feel very foolish. However, we do not hold this against him; indeed, we welcome this feeling of ridicule because of the skill with which the joke was delivered.'

  The others nodded. Federico swallowed the piece of orange. He snorted, coughed, his eyes bulged. His face turned purple and he made a harsh scraping noise at the back of his throat. He lurched to his feet, arms flailing. Bernardo ran toward him, but Federico's elbow struck his face and knocked him down. Drool dribbled from Federico's nose; his eyes were glazed over. He threw himself first one way and then the other while the courtiers watched paralyzed with fear.

  I had been waiting for a moment whereby I could prove my loyalty and so as he whirled away from me, I hammered both my fists into the middle of his back as my mother had done to my father when he had choked on a chicken bone.

  A piece of soggy, mangled orange flew out of Federico's mouth and he fell face forward onto the table. Everyone looked at me — some with fear, others with surprise. Raising himself up, Federico turned around, eyes and mouth wide open. I thought he would thank me, but Piero and Bernardo, whose nose was pouring with blood, ran in front of me crying, 'It was necessary to save your life, Your Excellency. Please sit down. Drink this. Rest, lie down,' and so on, as if they had been the ones who had saved his life!

  Federico pushed them aside and staggered from the hall, Piero, Bernardo, and other courtiers trailing behind. Only Septivus and Cecchi remained. Septivus looked at me, a half smile displaying his little ferret teeth. He sighed and shook his head.

  I said, 'Did I not—'

  'Yes, you did,' Cecchi said quickly and followed after the others.

  'But since it was I who saved him,' I said to Tommaso later when we were playing cards, 'I should be the one who is rewarded. I will tell him at breakfast.'

  'Save your breath,' Tommaso shrugged and dealt another hand of piquet.

  I threw my cards down. 'Why should Piero and Bernardo be praised for what I did?'

  'Getting close to Federico is more of a curse than a blessing.'

  'How would you know?' I was annoyed that he did not care for my welfare.

  He stared at me, his eyes flitting from side to side. 'Oh, do what you will,' he said, and throwing his cards in the air, he kicked over the table.

  CHAPTER 11

  It was not the first time Tommaso and I had argued. Christ! You could not say the sun was round without getting into a fight with him. Not long after I had promised Miranda to him, he had complained to Cristoforo that he needed help in the garden. Cristoforo, who was only too pleased to do me ill, agreed Miranda would be a good helper. The days were growing shorter and the sun, having spent its summer strength, hid its weakened face behind a blanket of sullen clouds. Miranda often returned to our room muddy and cold. She did not complain, but at night when I held her shivering body close to me, her tears escaped under the cover of sleep. I told Tommaso she would get sick if she did not work inside the palace.

  'Where?' he shouted. 'In the laundry? So the lye can blind her?'

  His shouting no longer had any effect on me, and besides I suspected the true reason he wanted Miranda to work in the garden was because he feared someone in the palazzo might steal her affection. I think it was for that same reason that he, who could not keep a secret any more than I could keep an ant on a string, did not tell anyone of their betrothal. I beseeched God, saying, 'For all that You have given me, please take it away if it will ease Miranda's troubles.'

  God in His mercy answered my prayer.

  One evening Septivus was reading the poetry of Catullus when Federico interrupted, saying, 'I would rather be put on the rack than listen to this.'

  'A child would better understand,' Septivus mumbled as we left the hall, to which I said, 'I know such a child,' and told him how Miranda had learned to read and write at the convent and could also sing and spin wool.

  Despite his huge eyebrows which gave him a fierce expression, Septivus was gentle in nature for he said, 'I only teach the children of courtiers. But if she is as you say, perhaps I can make an exception. Send her to me.'

  I ran to the garden and, without a word to Tommaso, pulled Miranda from her work and took her to the library. Before she went into Septivus's room I told her to remember everything the nuns had taught her and all would be well; then I pushed her inside. I pressed my ear to the door. I heard her speaking softly, reading perhaps, and then her small clear voice broke into song. Some moments later the door flew open and Septivus emerged, steering Miranda by the shoulder. ‘I will speak to Cecchi,' he said. 'She can start tomorrow.'

  In my haste I had not told Miranda why I had acted so and now she cried out, 'Start what? What must I do?'

  Septivus told her she would be studying with the other children.

  'And not work in the garden?' she asked, her face lighting up like a candle in the darkness.

  'Only for a little while each day,' Septivus replied. 'I will arrange it.'

  'You see how God protects those who serve Him,' I said as I led her back to the garden. 'Now you must honor Him by studying hard. It will also be good to meet the other children. One day you will become a maidservant. You will be seen by fine, wealthy men.' I had not told her about my pledge to marry her to Tommaso, and if Tommaso said anything I would deny it. If Miranda could better herself then why should she not? As I had predicted, much could happen in four years.

  Miranda, however, could not contain her excitement and, as I left, I heard her telling Tommaso that he would no longer be able to lord it over her since she would soon be a princess.

  But the next day Miranda sat in the corner of the room picking at the scabs on her knees and refused to go to her class.

  'But why? Yesterday you were so excited.'

  She would not answer. I said if she had not changed her mind after I had pissed I would drag her there myself. O
n my return I passed the garden where Tommaso was pulling up carrots and cabbages. I told him of Miranda's refusal to go to the class and asked him if he knew why.

  He shrugged and opened his eyes wide to show his innocence. 'But,' he added, 'she is right not to go. She will become vain and forget those who helped her.'

  I leaped across the path and jerked his head up by the neck. 'Tell me what you told her or I will give you a blow your children will remember.'

  'I told her they will make fun of her because of her clothes,' he stammered.

  I boxed his ears and he ran away, swearing he would revenge himself. Then I found Miranda, pulled her dress from her shoulders, and took it to the laundry.

  When my eyes got used to the sting of lye and the billowing clouds of steam, I saw that the dim shapes laboring over the boiling pots were mostly young girls no older than Miranda. There was also an older half-blind crone and the tall blonde woman whom Tommaso had told me was the slave from Bosnia. Their faces were red and sweaty, their arms and hands pink, rough, and wrinkled. I asked if one of them would be kind enough to wash Miranda's dress.

  The tall blonde one, Agnese, who had a wide face and mouth, but a nose no larger than a button, raised her arm and pushed her hair out of her sad gray eyes in a way that moved something in me. Without saying a word, she took the dress from me and washed it. When she had finished I saw colors in it I had never seen before. I thanked her and returned it to Miranda. She kissed me over and over with delight, dancing around the room, holding the dress to her as if she was a princess. I lay on the bed, tears forming in my eyes, and resolved to do everything I could to make her happy even if it cost me my life.

  The next day Miranda went to her classes. Except for Giulia, Cecchi's daughter, who was lame in one leg, the other children ignored her. This did not disturb Miranda for she enjoyed her lessons and practiced them in our room, especially the lyre, which she loved best of all. She still worked in the garden every day — Tommaso saved the dirtiest work for her — but since he often slipped away to his friends in the kitchen, Miranda did likewise, spending time in Giulia's apartment playing with her dolls.

  Indeed, Tommaso seemed to have forgotten about Miranda altogether. The wind had whipped the peach fuzz from his face, hairs sprouted on his upper lip, and his voice no longer cracked. He swaggered around the palazzo in a new blue velvet jacket and matching blue hose, boasting how he would soon be a courtier. Of course, the kitchen boys teased him and threatened to cut up his jacket so he wore it all the time, even sleeping in it. It soon became shabby. He feared he would ruin it but was afraid to take it off. Eventually, he had to wash it and then hid it so it could dry. Someone must have been watching because when he returned, the jacket had been slashed into a thousand pieces. He fell into a maddened rage, weeping and threatening to kill whomever had destroyed it, which made the kitchen boys, who I am sure had cut it up, tease him even more.

  I came upon him sitting by the stable. His face was puffy and red, and he was cradling the remains of his beloved jacket in his arms as if it was a dead child. I assured him he would soon get another but he burst into tears and fled from me.

  The whole palace laughed at him, even Miranda, although when we were alone she surprised me by saying, 'I wish I could buy him another because I cannot bear to see anyone so unhappy.'

  I still had not told her of her betrothal, and the longer I waited, the more difficult it became. But now that she felt so inclined toward him, I believed this might be the right time and was about to tell her so when she went on to say, 'If only he did not boast so. I hate that.' And the moment passed. I needed to ask someone's advice and so I sought out Agnese the laundrywoman.

  In truth, I just wanted to talk to her. I had given her a ribbon for washing Miranda's dress, but one of the other washgirls had returned it to me, saying, 'She still mourns her husband and her child.'

  'Tell her I will turn her mourning into dancing,' I replied, but Agnese's ears were deaf to my words.

  The underside of her arm and her pale sad eyes floated to me in my dreams and sometimes, when I walked past the laundry to glimpse her through the steaming white mist, my fallo got so hard I had to pull my shirt out to cover it. I spent hours thinking of ways to approach her and then one night, as I was carrying the remains of a platter of Federico's to the kitchen, I stuffed a piece of uneaten veal under my shirt, took it to the laundry, and offered it to her.

  'Non e velenosa,' I said, and took a small bite to show her that the meat was not poisoned. The other girls urged her to taste it. Agnese reached out her hand — her fingers and wrists had a muscular beauty to them — and put a small piece in her mouth. She chewed it, closing her eyes, moving her jaws slowly up and down as if she was not used to doing so. At last, when she had chewed all the juice out of it, she swallowed it and gave a little burp. Then she tore the rest of the meat into equal pieces and shared it with her friends. She made a space for me on the bench and I sat beside her in the dark, surrounded by the bubbling cauldrons and piles of laundry, watching the girls devour the veal. They did not talk and joke as the guests had done at the banquet. They savored each bite as if they might never have another, and when they had finished they said a prayer of thanks, kissed me on the cheek, and went back to their washing.

  'Grazie. Molto grazie,' Agnese said to me with such sincerity that my knees felt weak. I wanted to throw my arms around her and kiss the sadness from her eyes, but I simply nodded and said, 'Prego.'

  In the weeks that followed, I snatched capon legs, slices of pork, a chicken neck, a wing of a bird, and small round cakes of dough with fennel seeds. I loved the way the girls stopped their washing the moment I arrived. I loved the way Agnese's eyes widened when she saw me. I loved the way she licked her lips to make sure she had not missed a crumb, how she patted her stomach when she had finished, leaned against the wall and pushed the hair off her forehead.

  On the Feast of the Ascension I stole a fennel sausage, two roasted birds, and some roast lamb bathed in rosemary and garlic. 'I could get hanged for this!' I said to myself, but I did not care. The girls shrieked and kept running to the doorway to see if someone was coming to arrest me. Agnese laid her hand on my arm, it was the first time she had touched me, and said 'Attenzione.'

  'Do not worry about him,' the old washerwoman laughed. 'He could steal a halo from an angel.'

  Afterward, Agnese offered to wash my shirt because it was stained with sauce. Another girl offered to wash my hose, but Agnese would not let her. From then on she often washed my clothes and, no doubt because of her love for me, they fit me better than ever. I did not see how I could be any happier, until one morning at breakfast, Federico cuffed his serving man, saying, 'Why can you not be clean and neat like Ugo?' Jesus in sancto! Federico had noticed me not because I saved his life, but because my clothes were clean! I hurried to thank Agnese for my good fortune. No sooner had I started talking than she put her hand over my mouth and pointed to the girls who were taking their siesta. Her hand was warm and I bit gently into the fleshy part of her palm. She gasped, but did not draw her hand away. I licked the part I had bitten. She looked at her palm and then into my eyes as if deciding something. Then, taking me by the hand, she led me through the sleeping forms, out past Emilia's garden, and we began climbing the hill behind the palace.

  CHAPTER 12

  Agnese did not tell me where we were going and I was glad for the silence, because I was overcome with such longing that my mouth would have made a fool of me had I spoken. God's almighty eye beat down on us, causing us to bow our heads and place our hands on our thighs to push us higher. A herd of goats sleeping beneath the outstretched arms of a fig tree barely glanced at us as we passed. A salamander darted across a rock and disappeared into a patch of purple geraniums. Finches and robins sang from the trees, and in the distance a small gray cloud sailed across the blue sky, pulled by an invisible breeze. The hill was steep so I offered Agnese my hand, but hers was as strong as mine, and when I slipped it was
she who stopped me from falling. We climbed higher, our breathing joining us together until not only our breath, but our footsteps and our thoughts, became one; and when we came to a clearing among the trees we threw off our clothes, fell on the ground, and embraced so tightly that the air could not find any space between us.

  I kissed her mouth and the underside of her arms — she smelled of lye — and pulled open her shift so that her small breasts could free themselves. She was as hungry as I was, biting my lips and making soft mewing noises. Then she pulled me roughly on top of her and wrapped her legs around me to draw me into her. When I looked into her eyes the sadness had disappeared.

  Suddenly, Agnese pushed me off her and, sitting up naked in front of me, she turned to look at her two white moons. They were filled with small red bumps for we had, in our urgency, laid down on an insect nest and they were angrily repaying us. But we were both too overcome with lust to stop and, quickly crawling through the grass, found another spot where it was long and soft and, turning Agnese onto her hands and knees, I mounted her from behind.

  O my soul! What pleasure we gave one another! It seemed as if, having taken so long for us to find each other, nothing could interrupt our joy. The cloud covered the sun but we did not notice. A wind sprang up and still we continued our cries. Drops of rain splattered onto us, slowly at first, and then as if no longer able to bear its own weight the cloud burst and the rain poured down, dripping from my face onto Agnese's back and from her back onto the ground. We were still making love when the sun came out again and we exploded together like fireworks on Midsummer's Eve.

  Later, Agnese lay in my arms and I spoke words of love to her. She furrowed her brow as if she did not understand. So I repeated them slowly one by one, and then it dawned on me that she was mocking me because she broke into a smile as wide as her face — it was the first time I had ever seen her smile — and kissed me with great passion. I caressed her breasts. I pressed my lips to her marks of childbirth.