Leonardo’s Shadow

by Christopher Grey

  “I am glad you do,” he says.

  I need say nothing more.

  “We will go together to the Last Supper, as soon as I have made a few small improvements.”

  “Soon, Master?”

  “Very soon.”

  The Master, having finished his food, retires to his bedchamber for sleep.

  The news has stirred my thoughts into a whirlpool, and I go from room to room, picking up a vase here, putting down a book there. I clean candlesticks and door frames and kitchen pots and I’m the face of Jesus—the face of Jesus! I’ll clean everything in the house—the hearth, the stairs, the ceilings, the roof—and when I’ve finished those, I’ll reach up and polish the very sky! The Master has given my face to our Lord Jesus! This is as good as a confession from him—Leonardo da Vinci is truly my father!

  It cannot be much longer before he tells me himself. Perhaps when we visit the Last Supper together.

  For some time this thought lifts my spirits so much that I brush and scrape and sweep and scrub with the arms of ten men, but gradually the dull ache in my ribs and head compels me to sit down on the chair near the kitchen fire.

  The next thing I know there is a voice in my ear. I open my eyes. How long have I been asleep? Margareta is peering at me through the window.

  Oh, I—what time is it?”

  “Late afternoon, with dusk following on its heels.”

  The Master—I must wake him.

  “Thanks for the pie, Margareta. We ate every bit.”

  “Oh, I’m glad. The only good pie is the one that’s been eaten. That’s how you know it was good. The least I can do, now that the shopkeepers treat me like a real lady—all smiles and kindnesses—when I tell them I have come from Leonardo da Vinci. Why, only this morning Bagliotti gave me two extra loaves for free. They’re all waiting with great anticipation for the public opening of the refectory. The whole of Milan will see them on that wall your master painted. Peroni says it is the best advertisement for his shop he could ever have. He’s thinking of buying a farm and making his own cheese.”

  Far away from bats, I hope.

  “Thanks for all your help since Caterina died, Margareta.”

  “If your master would do me a little painting of the Virgin, even a drawing, that would be all the reward I’d want.”

  “I’ll be sure to ask him.”

  But I won’t hold my breath for an answer. Unless I want a purple face.

  “Your food, candles, and other supplies are where Caterina, bless her, used to store them.” She stops, quickly wipes her eyes with her apron. “Poor Caterina. Now I have the washing to do.”

  As soon as Margareta has gone, I run up the stairs to wake the Master. Then before I can accomplish this, I have to run down again, because there is a loud knocking at the front door. There has been so much loud knocking at our door, for so long, I wonder it has any more knocking left in it. Still, it must be answered, unless it can be taught to answer itself.

  “Where is he?”

  “Good day, Father Vicenzo.”

  “Did you tell him to do it, Giacomo? Was it you?”

  “Whatever do you mean, father?”

  “I offered to help you!”

  “Father Vicenzo—”

  “To give you my protection! And now this! I am Judas, and my face is to be mocked for all eternity!”

  “Father, I had nothing to do with—”

  “You lie, villainous boy! It was your idea. I will swear an oath on it.”

  “No, father,” I say.

  My master, in his sleeping gown, is at the top of the stairs.

  “I find,” he says, “that whenever you approach our door, Father Vicenzo, sleep flees this house faster than a friar from a poor vintage.”

  “Master Leonardo! You are not dressed!”

  My master descends the stairs and stands before the prior of Santa Maria delle Grazie. He takes several deep breaths, as if the air coming through the window had arrived fresh from Lake Como, instead of stinking of the rags they are burning in the next street.

  “I have finished the Last Supper,” he says.

  As if the words have to be pulled out of him with tongs, the prior says: “I know you have, Master Leonardo.”

  The Master smiles. Smirks, really. After suffering three years of the prior’s torments, it is hard for him not to show his glee, now that the task is done. “And I think you will agree that it is the finest painting in the land,” he says.

  Father Vicenzo blanches.

  “You did not think I could do it, Father Vicenzo. You had no faith. I was always told that you priests were made of the stuff. Nonetheless, the Last Supper is done and finished, reverend father.”

  The prior’s hands are trembling, and he is pulling at his robe.

  “Why did you use my likeness for the traitor Judas?” he says.

  “Your likeness, father?”

  “Don’t juggle with me, Leonardo! He has the same eyes, the same nose—he is closer to me than my own skin!”

  “Do you have a beard?”

  “No”

  “But he does, Father Vicenzo.”

  “You gave him a beard to deceive me—”

  “Father Vicenzo, you are deceiving yourself.”

  “Then who was your model?”

  “A villain, a knave of knaves, whose name protects him from the noose, but who deserves to hang as much as any murderer, for trying to murder a work of art by forcing it to be born before it was ready, and for putting poison in the ears of his betters concerning matters of which he has no understanding.” My master pauses. “But not you, father.”

  Father Vicenzo raises his finger and waves it at my master. He has never done that before. It is a great insult to do that. The Master’s hands are strong enough to snap off Father Vicenzo’s finger at the knuckle, but he does not move. Nor does he need to. He has already beaten the prior without having to touch him.

  “You think you have suffered?” the priest says. “You have made me so ill with your delays and stubbornness that I have not slept a full night these three years past, nor eaten a meal without it giving me the cramps. I gave you employment, Leonardo!”

  “My employment with the Dominican Friars is now terminated. The Last Supper is finished. It will attract novices to your order and pilgrims to your church. The Pope, when he visits Milan, will praise it to the skies—and you, too, no doubt, for your part in commissioning it. Be content now and let others argue over the merits of my painting. We have argued enough.”

  “But my face—”

  “Your face is not my affair. What I have painted is. Let be, father.”

  “You think you have bested me, Leonardo. You and your servant both. Nonetheless, I will have the last word. You must leave this house, now that your contract with the Order of Dominican Friars is fulfilled. We reclaim this house for our use.”

  “When you have paid me the balance of what you owe, father.”

  “We owe you nothing, painter.”

  “Oh, but you do. My expenses for the past three months have not been paid, nor has the sum agreed on for finishing the work.”

  “Then you will receive it in good time.”

  “And in good time I will vacate your house.”

  The prior does not say more. He straightens himself, turns, looks at me through narrowed eyes—I half expect darts to come flying from them—and then marches to the front door.

  “Good day, father,” says my master.

  The only response is the sound of the door being slammed shut behind Father Vicenzo, the prior of Santa Maria delle Grazie.

  “What is today, Giacomo?”

  “Friday, Master. A very good day.”

  “Because I have finished the Last Supper.”

  “And because we have surely seen the last of Father Vicenzo,” I say.

  “I think not. He will be on the wall of the refectory every time we return there.”

  It’s hard not to smile at that thought. Then the Mast
er says: “Now, if it is Friday, I will visit the baths. I think I have earned some reward for my efforts, eh?”

  Yes, Master, you surely have.

  “And, Giacomo,” he continues, “you have been a great help to me, boy.”

  Why, thank you, Master. Perhaps you do have a heart, after all.

  “I wish to show my gratitude to you for everything you have done.”

  I think I can hear it beating too, by Saint Peter’s keys!

  “Well, how may I reward you?” he says.

  “You know, Master. You know! I want—”

  “—You to pilot the flying machine at the demonstration for the Duke.”

  Wha—?

  “Pilot the flying machine, Master?”

  “And then we shall see.”

  “We shall … ?”

  “Tomorrow you will accompany me to the Castle for training.”

  “Yes, Master.”

  Yes, yes, a hundred times yes!

  And then, after I have proved myself on the flying machine—and then …

  XXXVII

  The next day the Master commences my flying lessons: how to guide the lever and thereby control the rudder on the tail to direct the path of the machine in flight; how to press on the foot pedals in such a way—left, right, left, left, right, right, left (the correct order being of the utmost importance)—so as to contract and release the spring coils, which will cause the wings to rise and fall like a bird’s and carry me into the air.

  “Of course, Giacomo,” he said to me after a few days’ practice, “this is our first flying machine. I am confident that it will rise from the ground, but I cannot tell how far it may travel or for how long. That will depend on your vitality and mental application. If you reach a certain height and then lose the rhythm of the foot pedals, or misdirect the machine’s tail rudder, you will come down to earth rapidly and without warning. You will probably kill yourself, true, but, more importantly, you will cause the ruin of my years of work, which would greatly dismay me.”

  I was bent over the foot pedals, adjusting the straps, when he said this. Did he really care more about his infernal creation than me? Then he could pilot it himself!

  But when I looked up he was smiling, and behind him Bernardo Maggio was trying to hold in his laughter.

  “By God, boy, your face!” the Master said. “For a lad with such a comic turn of mind, you are easier to anger than a wet cat!”

  “Master, I—”

  “Have no fear, boy. You will not fall from the sky like a piece of rock from a cliff. Even if you stopped pedaling for a half hour, the stored up momentum of the spring-coil mechanism would keep you aloft until you reached safe ground to land.”

  On the Sunday of the week following, the Master invites me—at last!—to accompany him to Santa Maria delle Grazie to see the finished work. It’s a warm day and the larks are singing as we pass through the Vercellina Gate.

  Drawing closer to the church, we notice several Dominican friars cleaning the walls with scrubbing brushes. They wave at the Master as he passes.

  “When will we see it, Master Leonardo?”

  “Is it a good likeness of our Lord and His Disciples?”

  And the Master answers: “I have given you Jesus as you would wish Him to be, my friends: brave, compassionate, and suffering—a man much like us, only much better.”

  “God save you, Master Leonardo!”

  The Master takes out the key and fits it in the lock. Then he turns back to the monks and says: “Wherever you sit in the refectory, you will find the eyes of Jesus looking down on you in His goodness and infinite wisdom.”

  “Thrice blessings on you, Master!”

  “We at Santa Maria are honored above all our Dominican brethren!”

  “At last well have somewhere to eat!”

  The Master opens the doors.

  “Yes,” he says to me, “and the monks will also see that what the Lord gives, the Lord takes away.”

  And the Master fixes me with a look. What does he mean? I must study the finished painting to answer the riddle.

  The afternoon light shines in through the western windows.

  The room has a warmth I have never felt before.

  It must be the majesty of the painting.

  I run towards the wall—I cannot wait any longer to see Jesus’ face.

  But—but that is not me! That is not my face!

  “Master, Jesus—Jesus looks like me, but it is not me… . His nose is less… . His eyes are more… . That is not my face! Master, you promised me I would be the face of Jesus!”

  The Master is directly behind me when I turn.

  “Did I? I do not think so,” he says.

  “You made me believe—you said that you chose someone whose true closeness to you must never be revealed. That was me, wasn’t it? Who else could it be?”

  “Foolish, prideful boy. Are you the only one I have ever been close to?”

  “I don’t know, Master.”

  “No, you do not. There is much you do not know.”

  “But I do know that face. It is not me, but I have seen it before. In your sketchbooks.”

  “It is the face of my childhood friend, Fioravante di Domenico.”

  My master is staring at Jesus with such sadness in his eyes. This Fioravante meant more to him than I will ever know. Saint Francis, what a fool I am, always thinking of myself—

  “I am sorry, Master. I am sorry for speaking out so hastily. You honored your friend, and you should be honored for that. When he sees—”

  “My friend will never see this painting, Giacomo. He is dead a dozen years. Thrown from a horse. This painting is to keep his memory alive in our world. Nobody but you and I will know the truth about the face of Jesus.”

  But why could the Master’s true closeness to Fioravante never be revealed?

  And then I remember that word spoken by old Piero da Vinci. Indecency.

  Oh God. The accusation against my master was on account of this Fioravante.

  “Why do you stare at me like that, boy?”

  “Master, I—your friend Fioravante, was he the one—?”

  “The one? What do you mean, Giacomo? Speak up!”

  “Your father, Master—I did not want to repeat what he said, but—”

  “My father is an evil old man who resents my fame. Do not listen—”

  “He told me that you were accused of indecency.”

  The Master’s face turns a shocking red. It is true, then. His father was not lying. Does this mean that the old man was also telling the truth when he said that one day I would find out—

  He is coming towards me!

  “Master? Master? What are you doing?”

  I move to one side but he takes me by the wrist—his father warned me, too late now—oh God, why didn’t I listen to him? My master was only waiting for me to reach the same age as his Fioravante and then he—

  “You little fool, will you listen to me?”

  “No, Master—! Not that! Don’t touch me—please, no!”

  “What is the matter with you, boy? I only want to tell you the truth!”

  “Master?”

  “Stand still and listen. What my father told you is true: I was accused of indecency with another man. But I swear to you, on God’s oath, that the accusation was a lie. A lie told for a vile reason, as all the worst lies are.”

  He looks up at Jesus, then turns to me and says: “Fioravante and I grew up together. He was my childhood friend. He gave me the affection that my father always denied me. We were closer than any brothers. But our friendship did not please his father.”

  “Why, Master?”

  “Because …”

  “Yes, Master?”

  “Because I am a bastard, born out of wedlock.”

  Whaaaat?

  “My father, I see, did not tell you that. Yes, Giacomo, Piero da Vinci is my father, but he never married my mother, who was a simple peasant girl.”

  My master takes
a deep breath. I have never seen him like this—ever. He is shaking with the effort of controlling his emotions.

  “Master? Are you—?”

  “Yes, boy, let me continue. Fioravante was from an important family, the di Domenicos, close allies of the Medicis, the rulers of Florence. It was his father who composed that anonymous letter accusing me of indecency. He did it in order to have an excuse with which to part me from his son. And his son had no choice but to obey. Because of that letter I was never allowed to see my friend again. Because of that letter I became an outcast. My life in Florence from that time on was almost unendurable. But I did not have the courage to leave the city, until the invitation came from the Duke of Milan. Then I took my chance. I found a new life in Milan and have not regretted it.”

  The Master’s head is bowed; he has brought a hand to his face. It is the first time I have ever seen him—but, no, he takes away the hand and his eyes are dry. Yet I feel that he has been weeping inwardly for his companion.

  We stand in silence and stare at the face of Fioravante, the Master’s beloved friend.

  Outside, in the cloistered garden behind the refectory, I can hear birds and, in the distance, monks are singing the praises of our Lord. Their voices have such purity and truth that I feel ashamed of myself, though I do not know why, except that I should not have doubted my master. He has always been good to me. How could I have thought that he meant to do me harm?

  “Thank you for trusting me with this confidence, Master.”

  And yet I have never felt more miserable.

  He nods. I hope we can both forget my outburst.

  Now the Master is pointing at Jesus.

  “As we were entering the room, I told you that the monks would discover the truth of the words from the Bible: ‘ What the Lord gives, the Lord takes away.’ Now, Giacomo, look at the Last Supper and explain to me what I meant.”

  What the Lord gives, the Lord takes away? How am I supposed to know what he means by that? He has crossed his arms. He is waiting for me.

  What the Lord gives, the Lord takes away.

  Think, Giacomo. Look at Jesus.

  What a piteous expression he has given our Lord. What unutterable sadness. He always knew He would be betrayed. But He did nothing to change His fate. Why? Why did Jesus not try to escape? We cannot deny it—He allowed Himself to be betrayed. He wanted to be betrayed! To die, for us. To die, so that we might live.