“Do not look at me that way. I quite agree with Leonardo. I do not really understand Piero’s ambitious motives,” he said.
“Yes … Well, would you please excuse me? I have to finish something by the kiln,” said Nonna before walking outside. Leonardo and I did not stand up until we heard Ana walking towards us with Margherita.
“I am going into town with the cart if you three want to ride in the back. I’ll drop you off in the piazza,” offered Zio.
“That would be great,” I said, wrapping the sling over the fresh shoulder.
Once Zio parked the cart at the front of the house, Leonardo and I stepped up on the back and settled ourselves between clumps of hay. As we drove down the hillside, I closed my eyes. Even with my lids shut, I could feel the brightness and see the dark shadows of the branches. I had dozed off underneath the sun’s snug blanket. The cart jerked me awake.
We had stopped in front of an old church with a pointed bell tower. “Antonio’s shop is right over there,” said Zio, pointing to an open door opposite the church.
“Thank you, Signore Francesco!”
“Prego … Take your time. I came to get away, so I am not in a rush.” He kicked up his feet onto the cart railing. Leonardo helped Margherita and I get down from the cart.
“I will wait for you here,” said Leonardo.
“You’re not coming?” I asked nervously.
“I think it would be better if you went in alone … It is such a sensitive situation that I think the fewer people involved the better it will turn out.”
“Maybe.”
“Do not look so nervous! You will do great.” I sighed before walking towards the carpenter’s shop.
“You must be on your best behavior,” I whispered to Margherita as we approached the shop. “They will fall in love with you. I am sure of it.”
No noise came from within the tiny studio. Tools hung on the walls in neat rows. A hint of sawdust flew about in spite of the owner’s meticulously clean workshop. At the entrance, there were a few furniture samples for the eyes to rest on.
“Hello?” I called out to the empty room.
“Scusi!” A man of thirty years came rushing in from across the street. “I’m so sorry to have kept you waiting, signora.”
“It’s miss,” I corrected. He glanced at the baby.
“Forgive me,” he said politely. I could see why Ginerva had fallen for him as he combed the cluster of gray hair back into his black ponytail.
“How may I help you?”
“Well, I’m here on a more personal matter.” I gently rocked Margherita. He looked surprised but waited for me to continue. “I hope you don’t think me rude, but I need to know if your wife’s name is Ginerva.”
“It is.” He crossed his arms.
“Is she well?”
“Who would like to know?” It was clear from the crow’s feet that spread from his dark green eyes that he had a kind disposition, but his defensive demeanor made me wary.
“Her mother, Signora Cioni.”
“She is well,” he said curtly, rolling up his white sleeve. He walked past me and further into the workshop at a loss of what to say. “Was there anything else I can help you with?” he asked, pulling on his gnarled work gloves.
“Yes, I have something for you.” I paused as an idea struck me. “Would you help me to get it out?” He stood up from his workbench. “Could you hold her a moment while I grab something in my satchel?” I asked, already leaning her up against his chest.
Shocked by the brevity of the whole transaction, he had no time to object. For a few minutes, I pretended I didn’t know where the letter was. While I searched I stole a look at the two. He smiled when Margherita’s eyes widened at him. She took a deep breath and leaned her round cheek against his arm. “Here it is! Sorry about that,” I said, placing the letter on the work table. “I can take her now.”
“She is lovely,” he said, gently holding her out to me.
“And as sweet as her mama was,” I said, sweeping her back into my arms.
“Was?”
“Yes, her mother died a few days ago, right after the baby was born.”
“I am sorry for your loss.” He frowned. “You must be her aunt?”
“No, I’m just a friend. The letter on the table should explain the whole situation.” He looked confused. “I’ll be waiting for your answer at Signore Francesco’s house right outside of town. I believe he bought one of your chairs … Please come as soon as you can, I am leaving in the morning for Florence.”
“I have no knowledge of the letter’s contents, but if it is from Signora Cioni, I can tell you that my wife has not spoken to her mother for five years. I would not like you to wait for a reply that may very likely never come.”
The prospect that the plan might fail angered me beyond reason. “You mean she wouldn’t read it?”
“It is possible … she has not read any of her past letters.”
“That’s so cruel!”
“Excuse me?” said Antonio, raising his eyebrows. “My wife has been through a lot.”
“I know … Zia told me.”
“You mean she gave you her version.”
“I can promise you that she didn’t paint a pretty picture of herself,” I snapped. “She helped you deliver your notes to Ginerva … Have you forgotten that?” I probed angrily.
“I haven’t, but I also remember that she did not stop that wedding. Instead, she told me to hide like a coward.”
“What could she do when in this place women have no rights, no social standing? When they are given away like objects for sale? She was trying to spare your feelings and her own! It broke her heart to see your suffering.” He said nothing but just blinked at me as if I were a hallucination—a vision of a strange teenage girl with an even stranger accent yelling at him about women’s rights and digging out the skeletons in his closet. “I brought Margherita to you because I wanted her to grow up with a happy family that wouldn’t hold her back.”
“Who is Margherita?”
“She was a kind soul who was tricked by a little devil, a girl who died wanting only a new beginning for her baby.” Still he said nothing. “You have the day to talk it over with Ginerva. You know where I am staying,” I said before turning out of the studio. As I crossed the street towards the cart, I breathed a little easier.
“How did it go?” asked Leonardo, tossing back a handful of pickled olives.
“I’m not sure.”
“How can you not know?”
“Well, I think at one point I was yelling at him,” I said.
Zio chuckled. “That is a good sign,” he said, stroking his beard. “All men like to be yelled at by a woman now and again, even if they do not know it. It makes them realize how human they are.”
“I do not like to be yelled at by anyone. Least of all by women,” said Leonardo.
“Like I said...” Zio spit out pits onto the packed dirt floor. “...even if they don’t know it. Does he know where to find you?”
“Si.”
“Then let us get going.” Once we resumed our ascent, Margherita began to whimper again.
“Unreal!” I said, looking up at the clouds rolling past.
“What happened?”
“I think Margherita can sense when I’m worried.”
“Give her to me then,” said Leonardo sitting up. “I’m never worried.” I passed her to Leonardo. Immediately, she quieted.
“See! She knows.”
“She might,” he agreed.
It felt good to stretch my aching arms out over my legs that dangled off the cart. The chilly wind picked up. It pushed around the cart’s edges and breathed against our few patches of bare skin.
“What will I do if t
hey don’t come?” I asked, rubbing my sore shoulders.
“You have done your best.”
“Have I?”
“I think so and I am a tough judge,” said Leonardo. “Her mother would have wanted you to look after yourself now.”
“What do you mean?”
“Come tomorrow, you will not have time to worry about Margherita because of the Medici.”
“Si, you’re right … I’m totally screwed.” I leaned back on the pillow of hay. “Maybe that’s why I am so focused on this. There is a big elephant in the room and it looks like Lorenzo Medici.”
“Elephant?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“Have you thought of a plan yet?”
“No,” I said, fidgeting with Idan’s chain. I opened its case and brought it up to face. My heart sank into my empty belly. “Oh no!”
“What is it?”
“I have less than two days left!”
“For what?”
“To get back to the metal door.”
“How do you know?” he asked.
I sat up to show him Idan’s face. “That number there...” I pointed to the window where the countdown appeared “... it keeps changing. I should have checked on it sooner.”
“Are you sure it is not just broken?”
“Stop it with that.” I elbowed him. “Just because you don’t believe in it does not mean it’s broken, and it’s also not a free pass to dissect it.”
“For the record, I hope you are just delusional.”
“Oh that’s sweet of you, Leonardo.”
“No, I mean it.”
“Why?”
“Because on the very off chance there is a grain of truth to what you say, it means you will leave me.”
“I could kiss you right now.”
“That and it would also mean I was wrong about Idan … and I hate to be wrong.” He smiled.
“You’re lucky you are holding the baby, otherwise I would throw you off this cart.”
“Guess I am a lucky guy,” he said, withdrawing his hand from Margherita to pick out the straw stuck to my hair.
“Have you thought of a plan?” I asked as the cart pulled into the courtyard.
“I have, but I hope it does not come to that. It is kind of a worst case scenario scheme.”
“Hope you are all hungry!” sung Nonna from the doorway. “Supper is ready.”
“I’m starving,” said Leonardo, passing Margherita to Ana.
Supper lay on a chunky wooden board placed at the center of the room. Stray droopy wallflowers decorated the table for the occasion. We spoke of Leonardo’s work on the Baptism of Christ and the tournament. I watched while they laughed at Leonardo’s comical rendering of the joust. We washed down the roasted chicken and vegetables with spring water or the table wine from the family’s vineyard. Leonardo agreed to a card game with his uncle while Nonna and I cleared the table.
“What beautiful hands,” she remarked as I passed her the dirty dishes. She placed them in the sink and took my hands in her own. I was wondering whether she was serious or not when she rubbed at my callouses and stared at my tinted cuticles. “You have artist’s hands.”
“People usually say piano hands.”
“What is a piano?”
“Oh … sorry, never mind.”
“Well, they are creative ones. May I show you something? Leave those plates there and grab that candlestick,” she said rushing out of the house. We turned the corner of the cottage and kept up our hurried pace heading for a square hut with a large chimney. “This is where I work.”
It was a modest space and the polar opposite of Antonio’s studio. Clumps of clay caked and splattered onto the walls. Wooden tools, worn rags, and broken scraps of ceramic covered the only table in the hut. The tiny space felt liberating.
“It’s a sanctuary,” I said, scanning the shelves of shallow bowls and miniature animals.
“I like to think so,” she said.
“It will be so hard to return to the city after being out here in the country. It feels so …”
“Free?” she suggested.
“Absolutely!”
“Are you sure there is not another reason you do not want to return other than the horrid stench and strict standards?”
“Is it that obvious?” I asked. She nodded, her long gray waves flying wildly about her face. “Although the reasons you gave are enough, there is something else.” I followed her out of the hut and under the star-stenciled sky. “I am running away from someone.”
“I realize I might be nothing to you but a silly old lady …” She turned to face me and her smile left. The aura of youth radiating from her disappeared. “May I be so presumptuous as to give you some advice?” I nodded. “It is natural to be scared, healthy even. It helps us survive. But as most things, too much is dangerous. My words of wisdom are to accept your fear. It will never go away, but you can harness it … Most importantly, do not let it hold you back here or anywhere,” she said before leaving me to the critters hiding from the moon’s light.
PART VI
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Late
“Wake up!” Someone hidden behind matted sandy hair shook me awake. The dreamy fog I had enjoyed all night slowly lifted. “Come on!” urged Leonardo, flailing his arms towards the door.
It took me a second to orient myself. I had spent the night in Nonna’s room. In the past, I might have felt strange about sleeping next to a stranger, but instead I felt safe. Nonna Caterina did not seem like someone I had only met the day before. I was comforted in the dark of night hearing someone breathing next to me. Her presence reminded me of the lullabies my grandmother would sing to me.
Leonardo was having a fit in the hallway, waving a bundle of clothes at me. I slid off the bed, snatched my shoes, and creaked across the wooden floor. “You took forever,” grumbled Leonardo as soon as the door closed behind me.
“What’s the problem? Is Ginerva here?”
“No.”
“Then why did you wake me up so early?” I scratched the sleep out of my eyes. “It’s still dark outside.”
“If we do not leave now we will not have time.”
“For what?” I asked, but he ignored my question by handing me clothes. “Whose are these?”
“They used to be mine but I have outgrown them.”
“Why do you want me to wear them?”
“Can I answer your questions later? Just put them on.” I shot him a suspicious look. “Please?”
“Turn around then.” I changed quickly hoping no one would come into the hallway. “I’m done.” Leonardo spun around.
“You look like you could be my brother.” He grinned.
“You really know how to make a girl feel good about herself,” I said, hiking up the green tights and straightening the black tunic.
I followed Leonardo down the stairs to the bottom floor, abandoning my underdress on one of the chairs. Leonardo had already ventured out into the brisk morning. Rosa sniffed at the meager grass that spotted the path down the hill and onto the road.
“Hurry up, you are so slow!” he said, straddling the horse.
“I just woke up!” I protested. He leaned forward to offer his arm. “It’s too high.”
“I've got you,” he said, grabbing me by the forearm while I pushed off my feet. What ensued was an awkward version of trying to get out of a swimming pool without taking the stairs, but it looked twice as stupid. Rosa was already walking down the lane by the time I regained my balance.
“I’m so sore.”
“You are such a wimp,” teased Leonardo, keeping his eyes on the uneven slope.
“Then you are a bully,” I snapped back. “Waking me up—”
<
br /> My words were lost when Rosa sprang into a gallop. I threw my arms around Leonardo’s waist so as not to fall off the horse. We cut a trail through the thick air and damp mist. Using Leonardo’s back, I protected my face against the cold wind that whistled by. Once the Anchiano hamlet lay behind us, the grey twilight transcended into a new day. Up ahead was the foot of a valley. Jagged rocks and coarse thorny bushes collided around one of the low mountain’s base. Leonardo rode Rosa around the hill’s slope until we reached a small clearing. Once he had tied Rosa’s reins to one of the scrawny trees, he helped me down.
“Where are we?”
“A place I would often explore when I lived here,” he said, walking through the thicket. “Are you glad you did not wear a dress?”
“Yes!” I said, scaling the rocky route.
“It is just around the turn.” He sprinted ahead. Once I rounded the corner, I saw Leonardo standing in front of a gash in the hillside. The cave’s mouth was wide but its ceiling low. “I would walk here growing up. Often I would just stand here and stare for hours, terrified.”
“You? I thought you were only scared of breaking into houses.”
“Seriously, I was struck by fear, but I also had an overwhelming desire to go in. I imagined all sorts of terrible monsters lived within …Why are you looking at me with that face again?”
“Because that contradicts everything you ever told me.”
“How?”
“Have you ever seen, touched, or heard a monster?”
“You failed to understand my meaning. The key word I used was imagine.” He fussed with a branch, rock, and knife. “I have an active imagination.” Sparks caught to the scrap of fabric he had pulled from his cloak. Soon the branch burned a modest light. “Shall we?”
“After you,” I insisted.
He crouched down and through the opening. I followed close behind him and almost immediately the cave’s low rock ceiling transformed into a cavity of darkness. I stood up to chase Leonardo’s bright beacon.
Lost in the City of Flowers (The Histories of Idan Book 1) Page 27
