by Joanne Lewis
Julio stood in front of her, awkward like a boy about to ask for his first date. “I don’t want you to go.”
“I know. It’s Buddy’s only chance.”
“If God wants Buddy to be saved, He will do it.”
“If God wants Buddy to be saved, I will find the Renaissance girl. Maybe she can save all of us.”
She hoisted the duffle over her shoulder. A cab was waiting.
PART TWO
Chapter Thirty-four
A worn and frightened traveler, Filippa stepped off the train at the Stazione Santa Maria Novella in the historical district of Florence. With the approval of her parole officer, she had taken a budget flight from Miami to Pisa then boarded a train to Florence. The duffel bag hung over her shoulder. Buddy’s hospital band was around her wrist. She had two thousand and three hundred dollars hidden in a money belt tied around her waist. She stood on the platform, not knowing where to go, what to do.
It was March fourteenth, one month since she had been released from confinement, one month since she had learned Buddy was ill. She had to check in with her parole officer in person, in Miami, in ten days.
Filippa had paid over six thousand dollars to take Julio’s house out of foreclosure. Another few hundred dollars for the home hospital bed, new pajamas for Buddy, an iTouch, Nintendo, games, a TV for his room, DVD player and DVDs. Julio had sworn to stay clean while she was gone. She left him one thousand dollars to look after Buddy. Hospice was scheduled to come every day for his on going care.
She had also contacted the sponsors of the contest to find the Renaissance girl. Yes, it was still on. Yes, the prize was still one million American dollars.
Filippa stood on the platform next to a memorial to the Jews who had been deported from Florence to Auschwitz. People hurried in all directions, rushing to catch trains, running to meet loved ones, carrying bags that bumped her, talking into cell phones. Like she wasn’t there. Flowery perfumes, stale cigarette breaths and acrid body odors caught in her nose hairs and in the thick of her throat. A tall, handsome Italian man with slicked back dark hair knocked into her. No apologetic look, no acknowledgment of his deed. Like she wasn’t there.
Filippa stared at either side of the wide station. Shoulders and heads bustled like the tops of trees in a hurricane. A woman stepped on Filippa’s foot. No pardon me, no excuse me, no mi scusi. Like she wasn’t there.
And Filippa wondered—am I really here?
It had been such a long journey—her entire life, that is. She felt the weight of her choices, her emotional entrapment, and her physical incarceration. She even felt the heaviness of what she couldn’t remember from her birth and from the black outs that comprised her life. There were so many parts of her life that felt unknown to her, like she hadn’t actually lived it. But being here in Florence—yes, she was really here—in this storm of commuters conversing in a foreign language and engaging in social rules she hadn’t yet learned, she felt strangely at home. All her fears dissipated. Even those about Buddy. She was going to find the Renaissance girl.
She elbowed her way through the throng, off the platform and into the Salone Biglietta, the ticket lobby of the station that had been constructed during Mussolini’s reign. A modernist design, the train station had all the markings of a Fascist building from the signal boxes to the station clocks. Near the ticket booth, people sat on the floor, leaning on their bags like pillows. A line at a café snaked around the lost, the harried and the homeless. The smell of fresh coffee made her mouth water and her stomach grumble. She couldn’t recall the last time she had a meal that wasn’t cookies, crackers or a granola bar. She put the duffel down and zipped her coat. She looked at a large clock that stood like a sentry by the exit. It was nine o’clock in the morning, three a.m. Miami time. Hopefully, Buddy was sleeping soundly. Filippa left the station and stepped into the morning Italian sun.
Smart cars, taxis, Vespas, buses and bicycles darted down the narrow, angled streets. People moved quickly, purposefully. Horns honked, commuters called, ambulance and police sirens blared. The noises ricochet around Filippa’s eardrums. The zoom of engines brought puffs of grey smoke that snaked into her throat. Her eyes burned. She walked swiftly, having little choice but to move with the cadence of the crowd. She passed shoe stores, clothes stores and cafes.
The air was crisp. Pockets of blue reigned in the sky. Scattered clouds billowed. She moved with the crowd and then realized that wasn’t what she was doing. The crowd was moving her, as if she were on a conveyor belt. She crossed one street and was thrust on to another. On the next block, the crowd belched and split into two. She was spit out, discarded. She ducked into a doorway, turned and found the sun peeking over the roof of the church of Santa Maria Novella. She smiled and let her heart fill with warmth. The Florentine sun that warmed her face was the same as her Miami sun. She allowed herself a moment of this enjoyment. Imagining herself back at home with Buddy. Buddy with a full head of hair. Buddy, tumorless. Buddy living like a regular teenage boy.
She stepped out of the doorway. Tires screeched. Horns honked, short, loud and high pitched. Drivers yelled. Scooters darted around her. She realized they were screaming at her. She had wandered into the street. She jumped aside, her heart beating rapidly as a driver directed a finger at her in the universal sign, Fuck You.
Filippa teetered back onto the sidewalk. She wobbled a few steps as if blinded.
“You need a ride?” came a muffled voice.
Filippa turned. The person was perched on a white scooter. She removed her pink helmet. The helmet was adorned by an Italian and an American flag.
“Are you lost?” the woman’s accent was New York Jew. Filippa recognized the intonation from all the time she had spent as a child at the Rascal House with Grandpa Raj. “I can help if you want.”
“No, thank you,” Filippa continued to walk.
The woman put her helmet back on, revved the scooter’s engine and motored slowly at Filippa’s side, zigzagging around pedestrians.
“When I first got here,” the woman yelled to be heard through her helmet and above the city sounds, “I refused to ask anyone for help also. I figured if I’m going to live in Florence, I have to find my way around. I’m from Queens so I knew if I can navigate the New York subways, I can tackle Florence. You’re American, right? You sure I can’t help you get somewhere?”
Filippa stopped. The woman pressed on her brakes. The back wheel of the scooter shot into the air then plumped back down.
“Where is Brunelleschi’s dome?” Filippa asked.
“Il Duomo? That way. I can show you. I’m a certified tour guide. I speak Italian. I can help you enjoy the city.”
“No, thanks.” Filippa walked the way the lady on the Vespa had pointed, past Santa Maria Novella, along Via Panzani. She didn’t need an expatriate tagging along. She hadn’t come to Florence to make friends, only to save Buddy.
Chapter Thirty-five
There was no wait to enter the Duomo. Filippa tasted bittersweet on her tongue. Bitter since Grandpa Raj had never visited the dome outside his books and imagination. Sweet for their shared dream that was about to become real for her. The enormity of the moment overtook her. She lost her breath as if her heart could no longer pound due to the overwhelming joy that encased her. To call the Basilica of Santa Maria del Fiore —the Cathedral of Saint Maria of the Flowers—Florence’s tallest building and the fourth largest church in all of Europe, spectacular was insufficient.
She looked in awe at the white Carrara, green Prato and red Siena marble on the outside of the building, at Giotto’s bell tower, at the chapels, then stepped through the gold doors of the main entrance. As her feet touched down on the colorful, inlaid marble floor, she felt a shock through her heart. Momentarily unstable, she leaned against the wall, head down, waited for the dizziness to pass. She took a step then felt a jolt again. Was she having a heart attack? Here? She sat on a bench and breathed slowly, with deliberation.
Up ahead, peop
le lingered—looking at paintings, admiring sculptures. Beyond them, was the entrance to Brunelleschi’s dome. She took a deep breath and stood. Her arms and legs shook. She sat again, knowing nothing about her life was ever going to be the same.
She sat there for more than one hour, enjoying her vantage, watching the interaction of the tourists and the security guards, taking in the exquisiteness of it all. Mosaics decorated the ceiling. Marble statues guarded the hall. Figures in paintings turned their heads and moved their eyes to check on her.
She finally got up, tested the strength of her legs, and determined it was safe to move forward. Each one of her steps echoed on the marble floor like the sharp bang of a gong. She stopped again, leaned against a wall. When she looked up, she faced a painting of Dante Explaining The Divine Comedy. She read the small plaque next to it. Completed by Michelino in 1465, it showed the poet in the foreground; Purgatory, Hell, and Paradise in the background. The dome in the distance.
She looked toward the entrance to the dome. A long line had formed.
Chapter Thirty-six
Filippa waited in line for over two hours before paying the eight Euros admission fee and climbing the spiral staircase that took her over the main area of the church. Frescoes of Vasari’s The Last Judgment danced on the ceiling. She marveled at the images painted by Vasari, the same Vasari who had written Lives of the Artists. She read on a plaque that Vasari was born in 1511 and died in 1574 while painting the frescoes. Filippa did some quick math. Vasari was born sixty-five years after Brunelleschi had died, yet he had mentioned the girl who had entered the contest to build the lantern in his book. How could Vasari have known about the girl who had entered the contest?
The duffel hung on her shoulder as she stepped through the entranceway to the stairs that led to the dome. The stairs circled counterclockwise going up, clockwise going down. It was dark and dank with grey stone on the steps and walls. An inner shell supported an outer shell, two domes in one. Filippa recognized the construction from Grandpa Raj’s drawings and explanations and from all the books she had read on the construction of the dome. It was Brunelleschi’s marvelous secret. No buttressing, no scaffolding. Just bricks set between marble ribs in a self-supporting herringbone pattern. And 463 stairs to climb. The same steps taken by the fifteenth century masons, carpenters and stonecutters—and by Brunelleschi himself.
She felt a chill as she continued circling up. The duffel was feeling heavier and her quadriceps and calf muscles were aching. Younger and better fit people passed her by. She passed a man who was hunched over, leaning against a portal covered by a steel grate. Light streamed in and touched his face. His eyes glowed. He had long curly hair tucked behind his ears and wire rimmed glasses.
A few steps up from the man, Filippa stopped on a landing and looked out her own glassless portal. The city of Florence was framed by a cut out in the marble in the shape of a shield. Filippa leaned in to get a better view. The tops of orange homes, the browns of other buildings, the greens of parks and the blues of the sky filled her vision. The Arno flowed below. The Oltrarno beckoned on the other side of the river. And then Filippa saw her. Way down below. A young girl dressed in rags. Barefoot. Running through the cobblestone streets. She was holding papers of some kind. The girl looked behind her, as if afraid. Then Filippa saw the reason for her fear. Three men were chasing her. The girl ran out of the shield shaped frame until Filippa could see her no more.
“She is a beautiful city.” The longhaired man leaned against the wall next to her.
Filippa pulled away from the window. He was younger than she had thought when she had first walked past him. Perhaps in his early thirties.
“Maybe you like?”
“You mean?” she pointed at him.
“No, no,” he laughed. “Firenze. You like her?”
Filippa smiled and looked out at the city through the porthole. The girl she had seen running was gone. Red-tiled roofs beckoned. The tower of the Palazzo Vecchio that had been the seat of government during the fifteenth century stood tall like a sentry. “Yes,” she said, “I think I’m in love with her.”
He blushed. “Si, it is easy to fall in love in this city.” He tipped an imaginary hat.
She watched him walk up the stairs, but for only a moment since he circled up the winding steps and out of her sight. The image of him walking away and the way he filled out the back of his trousers stayed in her mind.
She laughed. “Stay focused,” she spoke out loud.
Then she did a quick calculation. She hadn’t had sex in over six years. She laughed again and looked up the pending stairway. Her heartbeat quickened with the promise of what was so close. Brunelleschi’s dome. The Renaissance girl. Buddy’s treatment and his full recovery. And just maybe, along with saving Buddy, she’d save herself.
Chapter Thirty-seven
On top of the dome, Filippa gazed through the wire fencing into the stunning panorama. The modern magic of the ancient city sprawled in front of her. Santa Croce, Palazzo Vecchio, the Uffizi, the bell tower, the Arno river, the train tracks of Santa Maria Novella.
She imagined the goings-on of the city so long ago—the dome being constructed, the streets humming with workers and artisans, the cries of merchants selling their wares, men debating politics in the piazze, cows and pigs roaming free, and noise. A lot of noise. Renaissance Florence must have been a noisy place, she thought, with constant, feverish activity from the moment the gates opened until they closed.
She scanned the streets for the girl she had seen earlier who was being chased by three men, but couldn’t find her. She wondered what had happened to her. Maybe it would be reported on TV or in the newspaper. Perhaps someone would be able to tell her what had happened.
She looked for the longhaired man. She couldn’t find him either.
She drew her attention back to the city then circled the top of the dome, walking around tourists who tried to take photos through the diamond shapes in the fence, stepping over students sketching and journaling. She wanted to see Florence from each vista. She drew it all into her body through her sight, her smell, the touch of the breeze on her arms, and through her breath. Even now, after all these years, this was Brunelleschi’s Florence. Dante’s Florence. Vasari’s Florence. Grandpa Raj’s Florence. If she had existed, the Renaissance girl’s Florence.
And now, Filippa’s Florence too.
After circling for quite some time, Filippa found her own place to nest. She sat on the floor and leaned her back against a stone wall. She rummaged through the duffel and took out a granola bar, which she ate. One of those times when she didn’t realize how hungry she was until she took the first bite. She gulped it down then reached back into the bag and pulled out Grandpa Raj’s black composition book. She had read it many times but wanted to reread it once more in case she had missed some clue that would help her find the Renaissance girl. All she knew so far was what Vasari had reported, even a girl from the Gaddi family entered the competition to build the lantern.
She read through the composition book and stopped on the page that had always caught her attention.
In Grandpa Raj’s scribble, he had written:
Gaddo Gaddi (1260–1333)—girl’s great great grandfather. Worked with Cimabue and Giotto (The bell tower). Did mosaic of Coronation of the Virgin over the door in Florence cathedral. Almost nothing else of his work survives.
Taddeo Gaddi (1300–1366)—girl’s great grandfather, Gaddo’s son. Designed the Ponte Vecchio. Ceiling painting and frescoes in chapel in Santa Croce. Altar pieces in Uffizi. Madonna with Saints in Santa Felicita.
Agnolo Gaddi (1350–1396)—girl’s great uncle, Taddeo’s son. Frescoes in Santa Croce. Carved (?) statues for façade of Florence cathedral.
Giovanni Gaddi (1352(?)–????) girl’s grandfather, Agnolo’s brother, Taddeo’s son. Was he an artist? Giovanni had a son—name??? born 1390??? Died???
Who is father to the girl???
Lantern competition began in 1436.
Girl would have been teenager when entered competition? Girl also designed skyscraper with cantlivers? Girl born between 1419 & 1423??????
Filippa closed the book. The Gaddi family. That was where she would have to begin.
Filippa reached back into the bag and felt around for something else to eat. She found nothing except the ear of an elephant. She pulled Ellie out and hugged her to her chest. Buddy had insisted she bring Ellie on her journey to find the Renaissance girl. Even after the long flight, the stuffed animal smelled like Buddy. She didn’t care who would see her—including the longhaired man—she nestled into Ellie. Soon, slumber hit, a deep, peaceful sleep just like when she was a little girl.
Chapter Thirty-eight
The sun was down. Filippa huddled under the stairs. She had shoved the duffel out of view and into a corner. Ellie the Elephant was in her arms. It had been about five minutes since a security guard had checked the dome. She waited a little while longer then assumed she was alone.
She circled the inside of the dome, running her fingers along the walls, peering out the windows, walking barefoot on the cold marble floor. A fluttering filled the silence with a rhythmic, meditative calm. Glorious. Free. Unlimited. Defiant. She felt emotions she had only previously experienced while high or drunk. Feelings she had never known she was entitled to without some unnatural aid.
She heard flutters again. She looked up and froze. Bats. Hundreds of them hanging upside down. Their wings extended. Their mouths shaped in eerie smiles. Sharp fangs glistened. All at once, they flapped their wings in an increasing drum roll, louder and louder, until they flew up into the lantern, around her head, then out a window; rolling and arcing like a black wave.
