Leonardo’s Shadow

by Christopher Grey

  “Giacomo! Master Leonardo! It’s Caterina!”

  No. Please, no.

  “My wife says come quickly, come quickly!”

  We do not need to be told twice. The Master sets down his brushes, throws on his cloak, and we both make for the door. The four of us hasten back to the Master’s house.

  Margareta is kneeling by Caterina’s bedside as we enter the room. It is hot and smells of something bad. Her skin is the pale yellow of wax; her eyes are closed.

  “Giacomo, fetch me some water in a jug, and a cloth. Bring the green box from the shelf in my study. Here, take the key.”

  “Master,” says Margareta, “will our Caterina die?”

  When I return, they are waiting for me outside Caterina’s room.

  “She wanted to speak to you, Giacomo,” Margareta says. “You were the one she asked for. May the Lord have mercy on her soul! Poor Caterina!” And with this, her tears start to fall. Vanni comforts her, and while he does so, Poppo takes the opportunity to lie down on the floor for a sleep. I go to the Master.

  “Wet the cloth and wipe her brow, Giacomo,” he says.

  He opens the green box, pulls out a vial of powder, and pours the contents into a cup, adding water from the jug. The result is a dark brown mixture that does not give the appearance, or the odor, of being pleasurable to drink. I draw the damp cloth across her brow and cheeks. The Master holds up her head with his left hand and gently presses the rim of the cup to her lips. She sips. Swallows. Her eyes open. She coughs, twice. Her hand reaches out.

  “Giacomo?” she says.

  I come closer.

  “Giacomo,” she breathes into my ear, “Giacomo, listen …”

  The Master rises from the bed. “Caterina, this is not the time to tax yourself with talk. You must rest.”

  “I’ll be resting soon enough, Master.”

  The Master hesitates a moment, as if he is about to say something more, then leaves the room.

  “Is the door closed?” Caterina asks. “Now, while I have the strength, I will answer you all those questions that I have been avoiding until now. But God has shown me that I must tell you all, everything—”

  “Everything?”

  “About our master. And me.” She puts her hand on mine. “And you.”

  Her voice is so low that I can hear my heart beating above it, thud, thud, thud. I hold her hand more tightly. She takes a deep breath, and the light in her eyes grows stronger.

  “It was fifteen years ago. I had been your master’s housekeeper but a few months, when one night he knocks on the door of my room and pleads with me to accompany him to a house on the Arengo Square. To help deliver a baby, he says. Would I refuse such a request? Water …”

  I put the cup to her lips. She sips.

  “Inside was a young girl—fifteen or sixteen, at most. I saw she was in terrible pain, sweating and moaning, but radiant as Saint Catherine in her agony. The Master went to the bed. He took the girl’s hand.”

  “Please, Caterina—please go on,” I say.

  “I did not have much to do at first, except heat and fetch the water—the Master did not leave the girl’s side, and it was he who mopped her brow and spoke words of encouragement. The girl’s spasms came and went for hours.”

  I try to breathe slowly, but my thoughts are flying around inside my head like the birds trapped in the Cathedral vaulting, of which there are many. I put my hands over my eyes to calm myself. What if … ?

  “Suddenly it began. The girl cried out: ‘Oh, Leonardo, I shall die, I shall die!’ I began pressing on her down there to help the baby find its way out. And then the Master said: ‘Have courage, dearest Cecilia!’”

  “Did you say Cecilia?”

  “Aye, I did. Now don’t—”

  “Caterina, describe this Cecilia to me.”

  And so she does. Before she has said five words, I know that her Cecilia is the same one in my master’s portrait: Cecilia Gallerani. My Cecilia.

  “Are you still listening, boy?”

  Listening? I could not listen harder had I ten heads and the ears to go with them.

  “After the infant was born, she lay there, poor thing, quite exhausted, but as lovely as any angel at rest.”

  “And this was the year you came to the Master’s house?”

  “Yes. 1482.”

  The year of my birth, so my master has told me. And he would know! He would know! This is what I have been looking for all my life. The truth about my parents.

  “But you must not think—”

  “I need not think, Caterina—I know. I am that child.”

  She holds up her hand as if to halt me.

  “No, Giacomo, wait—”

  “Look at me, Caterina! I am not an orphan, a thief, a servant. I am someone—I am the son of Leonardo da Vinci!”

  This is why he has kept me in his house all these years. And why he could never tell me—because of the Duke, who became Cecilia’s lover soon after I was born! To tell me would have put her—all three of us—in peril.

  I am going to confront my master. / am your son. I am the son of Leonardo da Vinci and Cecilia Gallerani. The thought of standing before him and telling him what I know fills me with so much hope and fear I think I will split in two and fly to the opposite ends of the earth.

  “Giacomo, I promised the Master never to speak of this matter to anyone, and I have broken that promise.” She looks at me most pitifully. “I do not know whether you are the son of Cecilia and the Master, but, if you are, you should be told. God forgive me for speaking what I can no longer keep to myself. The Master is a great man, and he has his reasons, but the truth belongs to those who need to know it, not those who try to hide it.”

  “I promise that I will use what you have told me honorably, Caterina.”

  “Now I must seek my master,” she says.

  “He is nearby, Caterina. I’ll go—”

  “No, Giacomo, my master. The One …”

  She closes her eyes. She no longer has the strength to resist the pull of the Earth; and soon her soul will be as light as air, rising on wings to its destination.

  For long minutes I sit by her side, watching her slow breathing. Sometimes her lips move; she is praying.

  Outside, a cart is being pulled across the stones, its wheels scraping and squeaking, the driver cursing the ass for its slowness.

  I cannot tell you what goes through my head at this time. All I can do now is hold her hand, although it no longer seems to belong to her.

  And then she sighs, and I suddenly understand that I will never see her again—“You will not die! I will not let you! What will I do if you go?” I cry.

  And she replies, in a voice more like an echo, as if she has already left me: “You will find your way, Giacomo, as we all must do: alone.”

  The strain departs from her face and she looks at peace.

  She sleeps.

  “Caterina?”

  Her breathing has stopped.

  “Caterina? Master! She is going! Help, Master, save her!”

  The Master flings open the door. He bends over the old woman and listens to her heart.

  “Don’t let her die, Master,” I say. “Please, please don’t let her die.”

  “Nothing to be done,” he says. “She is gone, Giacomo.”

  Then he pulls up the sheet and covers her face.

  I cover my face, too, with my hands.

  “Death is one puzzle even I cannot solve.” He looks at me as if he would say something more, then turns away.

  Oh God. Oh God. Oh God. Why did you have to take her?

  Soon Father Cristofano, the priest from the Church of San Giorgio, arrives, but too late—too late to take her confession. Caterina is dead. She, of all people most deserving, has died without being absolved of her sins. But what sins can the Lord hold against her? Surely Saint Peter will open the Gates of Heaven without question and give her entry to the place she has been looking forward to all her life.

 
May God have mercy on her soul.

  I go to my room and lie down on the bed. In spite of my grief, which threatens to overwhelm me, I cannot weep. I am too angry to weep. Instead, my body seeks solace in sleep.

  When I awake it is night.

  I find the Master in the kitchen. He is eating something with great vigor, but the thought of food makes my stomach turn inside out.

  “An old woman,” he says, “and not as foolish as some.”

  He goes on eating. Is that all he has to say?

  “She was our friend, Master. Should we not show her some grief?”

  “I leave the outward show of grief to those who wish to impress others with it. Caterina was my servant. She will receive a decent burial, if I can find the money. That is how I will show my respect for her, and that is enough. She is gone, boy. Be happy that she is free of her cares at last.”

  The Master’s words are like a freezing wind that leaves you gasping for breath. Is that how he feels? Then perhaps he has no feeling left; perhaps it has all gone into his art, for others to feel what he cannot.

  The doctor, Grimaldi, comes from two streets away. For five soldi he gives us a paper certifying her death.

  The Master has called for Bernardo Maggio to make the coffin. I show him into Caterina’s room. She is wrapped now in her white sheet.

  Maggio produces his stick and begins measuring her.

  “Oh, this is sad,” he says, “too sad. She often said to me that one day I would make a chair for her, one with a high back, such as a fine lady might sit on. And now she has a coffin instead.”

  We both look at poor Caterina, dressed for her final journey. Maggio continues with the measuring. He gives me quick glances, as if he wants to say something, but cannot decide when to do it.

  So I decide for him. “Messer Maggio, whatever it is you want to talk about, please do not let Caterina’s death hinder you. We are friends, and friends may speak, whatever the time.”

  “Well, I thank you, lad. This is not the right moment for such a conversation, but I confess the matter has been on my mind too much of late.”

  “Yes?”

  Maggio returns the measuring stick to his bag of tools.

  “Why hasn’t your master offered me a place at Christ’s table? Benedetti is in, I hear. Fazio, Rossi, Peroni, and Bagliotti are in. Why not I, his faithful carpenter?”

  So that’s the difficulty! Easily solved, then.

  “Will you agree to the same arrangement I made with them?” I say.

  “You know I will, Giacomo, or I would not have asked!”

  “You’ll cancel his debts and pay us the ten ducats?”

  “I’ll clear everything he owes me before I started work on the flying machine—but, for all my work on that, and the materials, I think it only fair that I be paid an additional fee.”

  “Agreed,” I say. We shake hands on it. Neither he nor my master will ever see any money for the flying machine, given that the Duke suspects my master was planning to sell it outside of Milan.

  “Oh, but this is a great day for me and for all of Milan’s carpenters,” Maggio says. “We are looked down on by the other guilds, don’t ask me why, when Jesus himself was one.”

  I tell him that a carpenter has as much right as any other fellow to sit with our Lord. After all, without a carpenter there would have been no table for the Last Supper.

  “Why, I never thought of it like that,” Maggio says, with a laugh.

  “May I have the ten ducats now?” I ask.

  “I’ll have to bring you them later; I came out in a rush,” he says.

  “And deduct the money you gave me while the Master was away,” I say. “It saved our skins.”

  “God’s blood, Giacomo, am I really going to be in the Last Supper?”

  “You’ll be there until the paint falls off the wall, Messer Maggio.”

  Which may not be a time too distant, if the dampness spreads unchecked.

  “I’ll be back with Caterina’s coffin, and your money, as soon as I can,” he says.

  Maggio shakes my hand again, picks up his bag, begins whistling a tune, and leaves.

  The day passes.

  I sit in Caterina’s room and try to pray, but my thoughts drift here and there like leaves blown by a random wind. What should I do? Should I tell the Master what I now know—what Caterina told me, the secret of my birth? I rise. I sit down again. I cannot speak to him. I do not yet have the courage. I will have to wait until I do.

  Word of Caterina’s death travels down our local streets faster than the fire in the bakery behind the Church of San Lorenzo a year ago, which almost took the church with it. People soon begin to knock on our door to pay their respects. Caterina has many friends that I have never seen before, and only a few of them have the bitten fingernails and darting eyes of hardened dicers.

  Eventually, the last mourner leaves and the knocking on the door ceases.

  I replace those candles around Caterina’s coffin that have gone out and sit down in a chair next to her. Now I feel a great tiredness. I rest my forehead against the smooth wood of the coffin.

  Giacomo?

  Yes? Is that you, Caterina?

  I like it here.

  You do? Oh, that makes me so happy!

  I don’t have to cook a thing, it’s all done for me. Tonight we had pheasant baked in raspberry juice. And they gave me warm milk and honey laced with spices before bed. Every Tuesday there’s a dice game, and I’m allowed to win as much as I want. Oh, and I’ve seen my husband, Giorgio, and he’s well. Better than one could hope for, seeing he’s been dead all this time. But age means nothing up here. He said to me, he said he thought I was never going to get here, he’d been waiting so long. I told him that he shouldn’t have left me so quickly, then, and we both laughed. Oh, Giacomo, don’t fear death; it’s just the beginning. Just the beginning, Giacomo, not the end, not the—

  XXX

  “Giacomo! Giacomo!”

  “Uh? Master? What—what time is it?”

  “After sunup. What, have you been sitting here all night? The funeral has been set for midday,”

  “Where were you, Master?” My head feels as if it has been stuffed with straw.

  “The Last Supper. I worked like someone possessed. As if God had given me a new arm. Do you have the rest of those heads ready for me to paint?”

  “I’ll bring you one today.” The good Maggio.

  “I have paid out fifty soldi for the funeral arrangements,” he says. “Father Cristofano and the curate will be here at eleven. Be ready for them. I am going to sleep for an hour or so.”

  “Yes, Master.”

  “Wake me when they arrive.”

  “Yes, Master.”

  “Do not forget.”

  Yes, Master, yes, yes, yes.

  The floor is dirty. When Caterina sees it, she will surely—but she won’t. She won’t see any of my hasty cleaning ever again. Oh, Caterina, I promise to scrub the house top to bottom, so that when you look down on me from Heaven, you are not ashamed of my work.

  I throw open the window shutters and the front door to let in the fresh air. I bring out a pail of water and wash down the steps. And then I fetch the long-handled broom and sweep the street all the way to the juniper tree.

  On my return to the house, a group of some dozen local merchants and tradesmen (most of them on that list I made) are standing at the door. And at the front is Messer Benedetti, his hand raised.

  “Ah, Giacomo, there you are. I was just about to knock.”

  “You can save yourself the exercise,” I say. “If your friends have come for money, they must go away disappointed. Today we bury our Caterina.”

  “No, Giacomo, you’ve got it wrong. These fine gentlemen are not here for your master’s money; on the contrary, they’re here to cancel your master’s debts. If you can promise them seats at our Lord’s table in the Last Supper, that is.” He moves closer to me. “Bagliotti and his friends have been boasting about it all
over town. You didn’t tell me that others were being offered a place!”

  “I didn’t say they weren’t.”

  “Yes, well, it rather takes the shine off for me. Nonetheless—”

  Nonetheless, I do not think you will complain too loudly and risk losing your own seat at the table.

  “Caterina’s funeral is set for midday. We do not have time to conclude the matter now. Let us meet tonight—at the Seven Knaves.”

  “Very good,” Benedetti says. He shakes my hand and leads the merchants away.

  Two hours later, the Master awakes, in time for us to welcome Father Cristofano, his curate, a priest, and four coffin bearers.

  We make our procession to the Church of San Giorgio, and there we bury Caterina. Then the Master returns to the Last Supper and I to home.

  The rest of the day I spend in my room.

  I lie on my bed and think about what has happened and what will.

  Caterina is gone forever. She has given me my life at the same time as she has taken from me her own. And now that I know the truth, I must find the right time to face the Master and tell him what I know. But when? If he never trusted me before with the knowledge that I am his son—thinking that because I cannot control my tongue, I would one day let slip to someone that he and Cecilia are my parents—why would he change his decision now?

  He might even try to convince me that Caterina did not tell the truth!

  But I cannot keep this to myself, I will not. I have waited too many years to discover the truth. But I must hear it from his own mouth. I will confront him, whatever the consequences.

  When? Of course, when Cecilia comes to visit us. That’s the perfect time—with both of them here together, they will have to confess. If the Master tries to deny me, Cecilia will prevent him. He must have been preparing to tell me, anyway. He cannot complain if I have discovered the truth sooner than he anticipated—he knows I am a fast learner!

  But now that I have uncovered my past, I no longer need Assanti’s help to restore my memory. I will have to tell Tombi as much.